Full Circle Associates

May I just say, I love wunderkind. Zack Rosen has posted a screen cast on Magic Groups exploring how CivicSpace can provide Yahoogroup like functionality.

I work with many international NGOs for whom email lists are the common denominator. Not everyone in the world has stable web access, but most can, by hook or by crook, access email. So a community tool that has email as the bedrock is critical. I'm happy to see this and look forward to learning more about it at Penguin Day here in Seattle on Saturday. Anyone else coming to it?.

Consider this:

* My job is to focused around developing web applications that help communities collaborate yet the majority of the day to day collaborative work I am personally involved in is faciliated by standard mailman mailing lists, not community focused web applications. Mailing lists are functionaly no different than they were more than twenty years ago when they were invented.
* Without a doubt the most pervasive and powerful organizing tool the Dean campaign grassroots groups used beyond Meetup to self organize was Yahoo groups. Yahoo's business is centered around 'user produced content' and community. YahooGroups (formerly eGroups) with 50M registered users is their #1 community tool. Yet the toolset has barely changed in the 6+ years since eGroups was bought and made a part of Yahoo.
* In my experience as a community organizer (DeanSpace, PeopleFinder) I have found that there are only two indespensable tools: wiki's and mailinglists. With both in place 85%+ of your web app needs are covered and groups are more than capable of self-organizing effectively.

So given all this, why does CivicSpace still not ship with working YahooGroups-like mailinglists and wiki support? Good freaking questions. Thankfully, I believe we are finally getting close to an adequate answer....

Behold dear readers, my fi"