After an absolutely beautiful spring weekend, Washington, DC woke up to a very wet and windy Monday. And unfortunately, relief from the rain isn’t expected to come until late in the week. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to stay busy and dry this week while you wait for the weather to break. Below are the week’s tech events that we find most intriguing, and as always you can find a full listing over at DC Tech Events.
Tuesday
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Using Drupal in Political and Advocacy Campaigns: Drupal is the backbone of many political and advocacy sites, and at this meetup you’ll hear an explanation of why that is. Harish Rao – the IT director of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004 and the head of numerous other advocacy campaigns – will talk about why he uses Drupal to build campaign tools.
7:00 pm
DC Area Online News Association Meetup: If your career falls into the space where traditional news and online news meet (and really, that’s almost everyone in the media business today), come out to talk with others in your business and hear what others are doing to meet common challenges.
7:00 pm
Pimp Your Nonprofit: The Eat Well Guide: This month’s NetSquared meetup will take a look at the social media strategy the Eat Well Guide has already successfully deployed and then segue into a brainstorming session on how they (and really any nonprofit) can move beyond that to recruit people who aren’t yet supporters of their cause.
Wednesday
12:15 – 1:45 pm
Media Future Now Brown Bag: This month’s lunch will cover three key topics for anyone in the online organizing world – reaching the influentials, people with large networks and trusted voices in your niche that can sway opinion; building a successful online campaign to mobilize the masses; and using twitter to get out messages and inform the public. Pack a lunch and head over the USTelecom building to hear more on these topics.
6:30 – 8:00 pm
DC Media Makers: Want to learn more about digital media and share your experiences creating content? Then come out for this meetup. This month’s get together will start with two presentations – one by an expert in online video production for nonprofits and former board member of Arlington Community Television, and the other by the team behind the GEICO cavemen flash website that complemented the tv commercials.
6:30 pm
Washington DC CiviCRM Meetup: Do you use CiviCRM? Ever wanted to pick the brains of others who do too? If so, there’s a new meetup for you. Come out on Wednesday to talk with other CiviCRM users and ask any questions you have to the group.
Friday
8:30 – 10:00 am
Technology Salon: Future of Mobile-Empowered Development: The prevalence of mobile phones around the world have created a ton of new business opportunities, and many of these jobs are in the developing world. In this talk, a representative from Vodafone will talk about ways the private sector spurred this growth and what the development community can learn from this to help replicate and further it when the next new technology comes around.
Hope to see you out this week!