Rachel Murray

I cried once when I was at NTC. Well, it wasn’t exactly crying. It was that welling up, lump in the throat feeling you get when you witness something really powerful. The winner of the NTC video contest, Stop the Clash of Civilizations, blew me and everyone else away.

It addresses two fundamental points we cannot forget:

1. We do have the power to change our world
2. What we want to change is what a lot of other people want, too

It’s so easy to forget these things. For most of us, we spend our days dealing with the trees that blind us to the forest. When we start to see the forest, we still only see all the trees and we neglect the ecosystem that binds the whole thing together. Taking stock in the world around us is definitely not the path of least resistance. Thankfully, this video makes it easy to remember that that path isn’t the right one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWyJJQbFago]

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I’m at the airport. It’s 9:44am. My flight doesn’t leave until 11am. I’ve already been here for 45 minutes. I have time issues. I can’t help but be early. Thank you infrastructure.

I’m going to the NTEN conference in DC. It’s purported to be a massive nonprofit geek session, which should be interesting. I’ve attended web conferences before, some veering more toward the tech, others more toward design and usability. I’ve attended a web conference for UN organizations, too, which probably most closely resembles this one.

I can’t help but feel that this one’s different though. There’s something about grouping a bunch of professionals who would normally be paid exorbitant sums of money for what they do, but choose the nobler path for ethical reasons. And the financial cost isn’t the only risk in being in the nonprofit tech world. Because there’s still a lot of catch-up for nonprofits in this sphere, often we are lone evangelists, struggling to get our voice heard over the (also very important) programming and development needs. Fortunately, the gain is so huge.

But I digress… this is my first wireless-blogging-in-an-airport post. I’m excited that it took me less time than I thought to get to the airport from where I was through a pleasant trip on public transportation during rush hour. I’m excited that it took me no time and very little money to hop online and type away. I’m excited that security was even painless. I’m excited because there was a 5 year old girl who came up to my computer to bang on the keyboard (I believe these kids have computer programming wired into their DNA now). And I’m excited that WordPress has a Save and Continue Editing button so I didn’t lose any of my changes.

Life is good… and now I can hop offline just as easily, hop on the plane, and be in DC in no time. Life isn’t just good. Life is too good. Which is why for me, working for a nonprofit is important. It should be this good for everyone.