The holidays are that giving time of year, so we've been reflecting on some of the projects, ideas, and initiatives we've supported in 2010. Since 1993 while we've always been a mission driven business, while we didn't start with a specific giving strategy, looking back some clear patterns have emerged in the over half a million dollars we've offered through in-kind and cash support to the movements we hold dear.

Our giving falls into three categories: supporting the environmental and social justice movements, community building in our own industry of digital campaigns, and helping create new models for change within business and philanthropy.

Have you heard that Drupal 7 will get a facelift, but to the backend? Yup. Drupal 7 should be the best upgrade yet with attention being put into the usability and interaction of the backend, administrative panels. How do I know this?

While at the IxDA conference held in Vancouver I attended Leisa Reichelt's "Designing by Community: Redesigning the Drupal.org Website" session where she went over the process her organization, Disambiguity, used to redevelop the Drupal.org site. At the end she spoke about how her organization was queuing up to help Drupal redesign the application, creating a better user experience for those who administrate and use Drupal. At that point, the redesign with their involvement seemed to be more at the discussion stage than a firm plan.

A few recent articles I found over the holidays shed some light on where things are going in 2009, at least in our little web world. The first shows recent survey responses on marketing manager's shift towards digital media in 2009. The second is an article filled with great stories of how social change orgs are using social media to create new results. Despite the enormous economic difficulties around us, both offer hopeful news on the power of social media to help navigate times of massive change, and perhaps even create a stronger, more reslinent, and more innovative sector as a result.