I am currently working as the Communications Officer for a professional association, which needs to leverage the skills and interests of its members by recruiting them as volunteers, and this conversation is particularly relevant to some of the things I do as part of my job. If you are trying to recruit volunteers, here is what I think you should know:

Virtual volunteering works, and it will help you find the volunteers you already have.

All volunteer-based organizations are constantly looking for one thing: more volunteers. Sometimes they find them, often they do not. This does not mean that they do not already have a “core” group of committed people running their key committees: it simply means that they still hold on to an idea of “volunteer” that simply does not match reality. However, what it does mean is that they often ignored people within the organization or otherwise involved with it who would be willing to give their contribution if only they were approached differently.

Often, a lack (or perceived lack) of volunteers indicates that you still think of “volunteering” and becoming “a volunteer” means:

• attending all meetings in person
• being responsible for potentially everything at all times
• being responsible for an entire event or initiative, from A to Z
• being interested in every single thing the organization is doing, or planning to do
• attending in person all possible events

Let me break this news to you: this is not what being a volunteer means. In fact, someone who does or is all of the above is one of two things: a hero… or an employee of the organization.

How do you recruit and retain volunteers?

Use mailing lists, groups and e-mails, but do it wisely: do not bombard people with e-mails every week (unless this was something agreed with them in advance). Keep the lists and groups current. Always allow people to unsubscribe, either directly or through you. Keep the lists focused: they should only be for one committee, or even one specific task.

Try to find out what people are interested in doing: in this way, you will already have an idea of who will not volunteer for certain things, and of who you might want to contact directly for others.

Be extremely clear and specific when you ask volunteers to contribute their skills and time: what are your expectations? How long will the task(s) take? What kind of support are you willing to offer? Volunteers like specificity, but they also appreciate some “wiggle room”: the best way to provide both is to write some standard guidelines for your committee, or volunteer task. Circulate these through the groups/lists at regular intervals.

Never think of using volunteers. You are working with them, not using them! Often, organizations think of volunteers as “disposable people” (“we need… pens, pencils… ah, yes, we need volunteers for that event!”), and forget that volunteers are people. And they aren’t just people: you are either asking them for a favor (e.g. if you ask for advice to a consultant), or you are trying to give meaning to what you want them to be involved in, explaining why they should be involved. To do either of these things, you need to demonstrate a keen interest in the potential volunteers and figure out what they might be interested in contributing.

The last point is arguably the most important. If it sounds like a lot of work – you are right, it is. But think about it: if you are desperately looking for volunteers, and you consider them to be central to your organization’s goals, then you are fully justified in investing this time and money in them. And if you are unwilling to spend time on them, why should they invest time in dealing with you?

I like to think and say that volunteers are in fact harder to handle than paid employees and, if you can manage, recruit and retain volunteers, you will have no problems with paid employees: volunteers need to be treated well, understood, consulted and rewarded. Shouting and tirades won’t do; you can’t fire them (they do that themselves); and you cannot trick them. Basically, honesty, personal interest, integrity, passion, vision and consideration (all things which are absolutely needed in a “normal” workplace with paid employees) are fundamental to volunteer management and recruitment. And being considerate involves thinking of volunteers as people with skills, a need for meaning, little time and a whole life to live.

If you do all of the above, you will realize that, along the way, you will finally find all those volunteers you already had.

There are other tools available for nosy ex-boy/girlfriends and HR recruitment professionals out there. Some of these look to me almost malevolent: Spokeo decidedly targets HR recruitment firms and professionals, offering to go “a step beyond”, and automate “candidate researches across 41 social networks“. Other tools are targeting anyone who would like to feel more in control of their online identity, and therefore see all the information about them in one single place – Profilactic is among them. I do not know how much such a tool would really protect you, regardless of what the name might be implying…

On the other hand, as a reaction to the new generation of social aggregators, other tools are being created to allow you to basically censor anything potentially embarassing or even dangerous that has been posted about you online. The one most easy to find at this point is ReputationDefender. But if you wish that some government records or published materials were removed from the net, you are out of luck.

What does this mean for the average internet user? That you really need to be careful about anything you post on the web – anywhere. You need to be particularly careful about privacy settings in any sites that offer you the opportunity to show public profiles – and, if there is information that would like others rather not know about you, then refrain from posting that altogether. Also, be responsive and fast if someone asks you to remove from the net information you have posted about them. Last but not least, it might help to have a personal website, where people can look for up-to-date information about you, ad where you can effectively manage your online identity (or persona, for that matter).

Further reading: 20 Ways To Aggregate Your Social Networking Profiles on Mashable.com

Xubuntu is a version of Ubuntu catering specifically to older computers. By older computers I do not mean Commodores, but computers with at least 128 Mb or RAM, 1.4 Gb of space on your hard disk, and a decent processor. My old computer has about 253 Mb of RAM, 20Gb hard drive, and an Intel Pentium III processor.

You can install Xubuntu without uninstalling Windows first, and you can even keep Windows on a partition of your computer. You can choose one of two CD options for installation, a Live (or Desktop) CD, and an Alternate CD. Only run the Live CD if you have about 200 Mb of RAM or more – use the Alternate one otherwise. Because of my specifications, I used a Live CD, and I will go over the installation procedure for Live CD users.

First of all, download the appropriate CD image from one of the mirrors provided on xubuntu.org. If you are running Windows on an Intel machine, you would pick the one called PC (Intel x86) desktop CD. At this point, your computer will start downloading an ISO image. Once the image is downloaded, it is advisable to check whether the file is corrupted before starting your installation. To do this, you can use a freeware, such as WinMD5Sum, which will calculate the checksum of the file, and compare it with the official checksum. It turns out that the official checksum for Xubuntu 8.04 is not really easy to find…so I will report it here to make things easier for you:

c83b84dc02b9e5480d64d2accdd9f3bb *xubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso
4f398cd35eaf297347f18634a5be5d77 *xubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso
0fb2297b036d9d1bf4cc0a13a4d82f76 *xubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso
665bcc283e131be4cb71ecb2bf0e3794 *xubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

IMPORTANT: if the hashes provided here did not work for you the first time, try again! I had the wrong hashes on this post (they were for Ubuntu, not Xubuntu). Now I have corrected them, so please try again!

If you are using the Live CD for Intel chips on old computers, the checksum you need is the fourth one for the top. Now, run the checksum product, and paste the official checksum in the space provided to see if they are the same. If they are, you are good to go. If not, you will need to download the ISO image again.

If you are fine, now you need to write the ISO image to a CD. Do not be tempted to just drag it…open your CD/DVD writing program, and pick an option to write ISO images to the CD. I downloaded CDBurnerXPro, and picked the option (from the File menu) to “Write Disk from an ISO File”. Use the slowest writing speed available – this step might take about 20 minutes, but it will lower the chance of creating copying errors, and corrupting the installation files.

Once the CD is ready, you now have an official copy of Xubuntu Hardy Heron. It is completely free, it comes with free 3-year Long Term Support, and you can copy it and give it to anybody else you want.

Before you start the installation, make sure that all hard disk partitions have been defragmented. If you want to try out Xubuntu without installing it right away, stick in the CD, and the loading screen (first image from the top) will appear. On the other hand, if you want to install it, you need to change the booting order for your computer. To do this, you will need to get into your BIOS. According to the brand of computer you are using, there are different keys that, pressed very early on during startup, will allow you to enter the BIOS. You can find the most common keys here. In the BIOS, you need to go into Booting Devices (or similar), and set your CD drive as the primary booting device, your hard drive as the secondary one.

Now your computer will restart. Insert the Live CD in the CD drive, and wait. Xubuntu will now load from the CD – this might take some time, as the system will have to be loaded to the RAM. Once Xubuntu is loaded, a screen asking you to pick the booting language (second image from top) will appear. Choose the language, and choose to install Xubuntu.

Now the CD will load and you will be asked to choose your favorite language – and there are tons of supported languages.

After you have picked the language, you will be asked to configure your keyboard, and choose a configuration that is used with your language. You can try out the configuration by typing a few special characters in the text box provided (try something like $£&?^@# and other special characters you see on your keyboard). After this, Xubuntu will set your clock and time zone. You can even look for your city/town, if that helps you simplify the process.

At this point you will need to decide whether to keep your old Windows system running in parallel with Xubuntu (on a separate partition) or whether you want to wipe your drive(s), and keep Xubuntu as your only operating system. If you are comfortable with picking partitions in Linux systems, you can do this manually. If you are not, and especially if you only have one partition under Windows, I suggest you use the Guided option (that’s what I did).

This will probably take a few minutes, as Xubuntu needs to analyze your disk, and try to figure out what partitions to make. If you are not planning to keep Windows, you will be able to choose an option to use the whole disk in one of the following screens – choose that one, and Xubuntu will be your only operating system.

Once your disk(s) is ready, Xubuntu will start with the installation. You will be asked to type in your name, username and password. These are important, because the username and password will be used at login, and the password will need to be entered, for security reasons, every time you will perform an administrative task (such as installing new programs and system updates). The installation will proceed, and in the end you will be asked to restart your computer.

Do that, and make sure to take the CD out as soon as the computer is rebooting (or it will reboot from the CD!). I do this once, before changing the booting order again, to see if everything is in order with the hard drive. If all is fine, after seeing some code, you should be able to see the main Xubuntu loading page. After loading, you will be prompted to type and enter username and password. Once you have done that, Xubuntu will load. And it will look something like what you see in the last image of this post.

Nice and clean, don’t you think? If you are connected to the internet, Xubuntu should be able to activate the connection right away, and you should be able to download updates soon. Now go under Applications (top left corner), go to Help, and check out the documentation, where you will find more information on how Xubuntu works, and how to stay safe while using it. And…ah, do not forget to change the booting order again the next time you restart/shut down the computer!

What about safety on the net? Xubuntu comes with ufw, uncomplicated firewall, which you can set up through the Terminal. But if you do not want to do that, I suggest you download Firestarter. How do you do this? Super simple – Xubuntu has an Add/Remove application panel! And you can simply search for application using the search bar in the Add/Remove window, and download them directly from the web – which is what happens with Firestarter.

I have been now using Xubuntu for a few days and I have noticed some good things. Most importantly, my computer is significantly faster than it used to be when running Windows XP. Also, Xubuntu is quite easy to use.But there are a few things you need to get used to: sometimes you will have to go through the Terminal, and type in some commands, or even edit code, to fix things. Which means, you might get to know the Ubuntu Forums quite well while setting up your computer. And sometimes the computer will get stuck, apparently for no reason at all. On the other hand, you are now getting a much safer system than whatever else you were running before.

Sources: Open Source Tutorials and Build Your Own PC.

Post Scriptum: The newest edition of Encephalon is up, and it even includes one of my own posts. Check it out!