SocialDesignZine in English. My favorite Italian web site just launched an English version! SocialDesignZine is a blog about social design published by the Italian Graphic Design Association (AIAP). Huzzah!
 ¶

Nonprofit CEO bloggers. “Some nonprofits are turning to blogs to help craft their messages and encourage more active participation with their organizations.” A light introduction to a few possibilities, from The NonProfit Times.  ¶

Editorial infographics. A Flickr set of information graphics created by Karl Gude, “sometimes in collaboration with staff, while Graphics Director at Newsweek, the Associated Press and The New York Daily News.”

Seeing them all together really calls out the collage of visualization techniques: photo montage, 3D computer rendering, painted and vector illustration, maps, all mixed in with charts, graphs and typography.  ¶

ASCIIO. Need a diagram in your documentation? ASCIIO designs flowcharts and diagrams in ASCII with perl/GTK.  ¶

Jesse Graves stencils with mud. It washes off and is a lot less toxic than spraypaint. It also makes a perfect medium for writing about farming or the environment. Here’s a brief interview and a note about his process.

 ¶

Electronics Recycling by Mail. On March 18, the U.S. Postal Service announced that the Clover Technologies Group would provide postage paid envelopes to mail them expired inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods or MP3 players to be reused, refurbished or recycled. Envelops will be available at U.S. Post Offices at no cost to the public. Only a pilot project for now, but could expand nationally. (via)  ¶

The Bush-McCain Challenge. Tightly edited, brightly designed five question quiz asks you to tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain. (McCain’s selected quotes position him to the right of Bush.) It’s a one-shot site, a sort of modern day editorial cartoon, but I found it a good demonstration of the effects of propaganda (I got all but one of the answers wrong) — and of the persuasion implicit in polls.  ¶

Twitter for Freedom. “[James Karl] Buck, a journalism grad student, was arrested in Egypt last week, and his only communication to the outside world was through his cellphone, which he used to post a message on the micro-blogging site [Twitter]. ‘Arrested,’ he typed into his phone, a message that broadcast via the Web to his friends in the United States and bloggers in Egypt.... His friends contacted the U.S. Embassy and his school, the University of California at Berkeley, which sent a lawyer to get him out of jail.”

A good use case to add to the repertoire of texting and activism. It’s like your own personal urgent action network. Thank you, Blaine!

Update: See this Wired item on using Twitter to coordinate events, rumor control and public safety during direct actions against the war in San Francisco.  ¶

IMF losing money and influence. A rare bit of good news coming out of recent economic disasters.  ¶