I met Josh Becker in 2001 when he launched the Full Circle Fund, a giving circle for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. As a growing and succesful network of highly connected people, Full Circle provides as much knowledge capital as financial capital to its grantees. In many respects, Full Circle reflects much of Josh’s values.

I point to an article by Laura Efurd on media policy and the next Presidency over at Grantmaker’s for Film and Electronic Media’s website entitled Media Policy And The Next Presidency: The Time Is Now.

Here are her suggestions for funders:

• Support educational and informational activities related to media and technology policy issues throughout the electoral process, such as education forums.

In San Francisco, all residents of homeless shelters will get phone numbers and voicemail.

In New York, students that get “A” grade will receive cellphones and minutes.

This is why we do what we do.

Ruth Williams and I are at the Hewlett Foundation for a Northern California Grantmakers briefing entitled Web & Where 2.0+ There is also a webcast.

Kim Hutchinson of The Disability Funders Network points us to website which has subtitled the Presidential Debates and is offering it as free service.

Even though I am not deaf or hard of hearing, I find it useful to simultaneously read and hear what the candidates are saying during these debates.

Hat tip to Kim and thanks to taudiobook for doing this.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about small bites of data, my New Month’s resolution for January is to reach IT ticket queue zero.

How will I measure it? There are two metrics that I want to use. The first is straightforward: what is the number of open IT tickets? The second is harder to measure: how do I increase uptake of the IT system in the organization? Or put another way: are the IT ticket status an accurate reflection of issues that my colleagues are encountering with our IT systems? “Not fully” is my answer.

Tis the season for New Year’s Resolutions, isn’t it?

It struck me that one reason why New Year’s resolutions are powerful incentives is because they are external milestones to trigger a change in behavior. They also come at the right time—when we are thinking about the past year and willing to learn from the prior twelve months.

2008 will be a great year. One thing on my plate will be to expand my blogging—in frequency, quality, and depth.

I’ll just end with Beth Kanter’s blogging advice rings true:

I’ll start off the advice with try to get into the habit of writing regularly. Write about what interests you. Link to other bloggers. Leave comments and connect.

Post your guess in the comments.

(Hint: JenG took this photo.)