The Internet, and it's not like what I'm writing here is news, is a wealth of information. The trick in making that work for your organization is to use a variety of tools to search for a deliver to you the things that are interesting to you, from an organizational perspective and then position yourself, or a team, to share the best of that information internally and externally.

First, open a few accounts

You’ll need to have aosme active accounts to be able to take the broader next steps. Even if you already have accounts at some of these services, I recommend opening some with a user name and password that you can share with others at the organization. This makes it easier to get help or transition the activities later.

1. Bloglines is a web application that helps you to manage and review web feeds from a variety of sources. Register for an account here: http://www.bloglines.com/
2. Ma.gnolia is a web application that allows you to save and share bookmarks. Sign up at: http://ma.gnolia.com/ Once you've logged in, select "Help" and then "Bookmarklets". Choose the bookmarklet appropriate to you system and add it to your bookmarks bar.
3. Gmail is a web-based mail application developed and hosted by Google. Sign up at: http://gmail.google.com

Now, let's assemble our sources

In this section, we will concentrate on finding the information that is already out there and subscribing to it.

1. Technorati is searches through a variety of "tagged" (self-described content) to find information that might be relevant to you. You can check it out here: http://www.technorati.com/ Put some search terms into the box. Spend some time reading the results and tweaking the search -- change words or add others -- until you feel like the first two pages gives you useful information. Once you've done that, you will subscribe to the search. Now click the "subscribe" link, grab the URL and subscribe via Bloglines.
2. Flickr is an online service that hosts photos. You can find it at: http://www.flickr.com Follow the same process as above. Search around for a bit until you find some relevant photos -- interesting, good and on target -- and subscribe to those.
3. Google Alerts is a service from (guess who?) Google that delivers news items to your mailbox based on customized searches. Think of it as a search session that continues working for you. You can find out more about the service here: http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en Now, set up a Google Alert and have it sent to you Google mail address.
4. You Tube has a variety of videos and almost every topic imaginable. You know the drill now. Go here: http://www.youtube.com and play around with search terms and then subscribe to the results of your search in Bloglines.

Time to share the best with your colleagues

Now you have set up some search agents that are continually scanning services and the Internet for new items on your behalf. When found, these are delivered to your bloglines account and your inbox. Now, you need to know how to share these with internal and external audiences.

1. Read your assembled Bloglines feed first thing every morning. Really. First thing. Every morning. When you see something that you think would be interesting to your audiences, follow the link so that it opens in a separate browser tab (that's not absolutely necessary but I'm here to tell you it will make things a whole lot easier).
2. Read the incoming Google Alerts in your gmail inbox second thing every morning. Really. Second thing. If there's something that you like, click the link and open it (and, yes, you should open it another browser tab).
3. Now, and this is where that earlier ma.gnolia subscription comes in, click the "Mini Ma.rker" and save with an appropriate tag or four. If you want this to be private, you can simply click the padlock so that it is closed. Hit save and let the small pop-up window close.
4. Go to ma.gnolia. Make sure that you are logged in and you will see all the items that you've been saving. You can simply point people to that page and they can find, annotated by your comments, the best that you've found (of the public items that is).

Resources:

• 10 Ways to Use Web 2.0 to Change the World: http://ext337.org/file_download/9
• Newsmaster: http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/02/19/the_birth_of_the_newsmaster.htm

Credits:

• All the smart people that write about this stuff everyday. You can see the information they share at http://del.icio.us/tag/nptech
• This has been prepared using pbwiki. I'm going to update it to make some of the steps more explicit and add additional set-up information.
• I am Marnie Webb. I work at TechSoup (http://www.techsoup.org) and am on the NetSquared team (http://www.netsquared.org). I also blog at Ext337.org (http://ext337.org). You can get a hold of me at: marniewebb@gmail.com.