There are a number of books available to help you understand this whole "social networking" thing – but none get to the heart of the matter with as much clarity and insight (and just plain good writing) as Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky.

For those of you without the time or the inclination to pick up the book, here's a video of Clay Shirky's keynote address at the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco:

We've had several discussions around the office about the implications of new social technologies for fundraising and nonprofits in general. It will be interesting to see if the practice of fundraising changes fundamentally in the coming years, as people become more connected with each other. Will fundraising become more social than it is now? Will we be able to give more directly to people in need?

With the advent of tools that facilitate organizing so well (and so cheaply and quickly) will experts who have traditionally been coordinated by large NGOs start to form their own groups and networks – bypassing the administrative overhead of the NGO?

20 years ago very few people would have said that a bunch of developers could just get together and make a world-class operating system without corporate backing or project managers and investors. But now we have Linux, running a large percentage of the servers which run the internet. The changes that enable people to come together directly and form structures that are looser than traditional models extends way beyond the tech world.

After reading Here Comes Everybody, I have a feeling that we may start to see more organizations forming around specific problems (drilling wells, distributing mosquito nets, internet access, cell phones for the homeless) that are smaller, more agile, and have less overhead than the larger, traditional nonprofits. By taking advantage of new technologies these new organizations will be able to do more for less money, and may start to draw donations away from larger organizations by offering the donor more "bang for their buck."

It's an exciting new world, and Here Comes Everybody is an invaluable guide.