As we've prepared for CreateBaltimore2, we've seen some compelling social media discussion of possible topics for sessions. On twitter, there has been a consensus around several topics... defining what is "tech," mentorship for women in creative and tech fields, and more. Here is a sampling of some other fascinating session ideas that have been proposed by email:

Rodney Foxworth:

Funding strategies for not-for-profit organizations, facilitated by Kevin Griffen Moreno and myself. From the perspective of a funder (Kevin) and a fundraiser (me). Topics to include:

• foundational support
• crowdsourcing
• individual donor cultivation and solicitation
• social entrepreneurship and enterprise
• government funding
• Program-related investment
• financing not fundraising

Lee Boot:

Photographer John Dean and I (filmmaker Lee Boot) want to do a session about bringing street commerce to Baltimore. I spent time in Instanbul and John spnt time in Florence this fall and we were both blown away by how different the concept of street commerce is in other parts of the world from the way we do it here in Baltimore (and most of the states). We think it could be the missing link for jobs, making the city a destination, and bringing life to struggling neighborhoods. What is street commerce? Something very different than Hampden's Avenue or the farmers market. We want to hold a session and show some film to explain why.

Phil Shapiro:

I'd love to brainstorm with other creatives the ways we could turn closed Catholic schools (and other vacant properties) into maker spaces. As a starting point, here is a blog post I recently wrote for PCWorld magazine on this topic. http://tinyurl.com/3rfwp45

I'm also interested in leading a session on The Revenue Stream.  A discussion of best practices for using

http://indiegogo.com
http://kickstarter.com
http://breeziee.com/
and related web sites.

Jonathan Julian:

What's next for Coworking

Shared workspace is just the beginning. Hopefully the next generation of spaces will be more like a playground for creatives, incorporating the mentality of hackerspaces like Baltimore Node, including artist's studios, a venue (theatre?) for presentations, classrooms, and shared tools for hands-on making of products and hobbies. There are a bunch of folks making strides to open this next wave of spaces, we all should get excited about the potential here. Are you interested? Do you have kids? Don't you think high school students would benefit from this sort of after-school activity? Can you help the various organizers make these new spaces a reality? Last year we had a session about coworking; this year we should talk more generally about creative spaces.

The Next Baltimore Hackathon

The first hackathon in 2010 was a great success, and in 2011 it indirectly spawned a Civic Hack Day, Startup Weekend, and the Education Hack Day (weekend). What's next? The hack-weekend concept is very successfully applied to a single discipline, bringing creative folks passionate about the problem together with leaders of the discipline so the results can be immediately applied. Building prototypes is fun, but isn't it more rewarding to build something that can be put to use immediately? We're looking for passionate topic ideas: Manufacturing? Libraries? Real Estate? Transportation? OpenData?

Learn to Program in 2012

codecademy.com, CodeAcademy.com, teamtreehouse.com, hackerschool.com,p2pu.org, hourschool.com

It seems like the non-techie world has suddenly decided it wants to learn a little bit about computer programming. Even a tiny bit of skill or knowledge can help you scratch an itch, solve a simple problem, or just know enough to be able to realistically participate in planning and discussion of technical projects. There are passionate programmers that are willing to help you learn a little bit (or a lot) of programming. Do you want to learn this valuable skill? What are your goals? Do you have a project in mind? Just curious? Help the community discover what your needs are, so we can provide the appropriate resources.