Last Friday, the Washington, D.C. metro system broke its all-time ridership record. Odds are that by the time you're reading this, Friday's record will have fallen a few times over again.

As DCist points out, there wasn't much special about Friday, July 11 -- just a nondescript summer day that "smashed" (well, okay, barely topped) the Reagan funeral record.

But this wasn't just some random blip.

Apart from Mondays, which seem to be systematically lower-ridership days (just like with online fundraising), Metro's top 25 weekday ridership days basically reads like the last few pages of my day planner. Every non-holiday Tuesday-through-Friday date for the past four weeks is among the very busiest days of Metro's history.

One of the most popular panels at the DemocracyInAction User Conference was -- no surprise -- fundraising.

This information-dense presentation from OMP's Katherine Watier and Courtney Ussery had the whole room scribbling notes furiously. (More of Katherine's brilliance at her Search Marketing for Nonprofits blog.)

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We'll be pulling this presentation and others together on Salsa Commons, but this highlight has been a hot ticket, so why wait?

Thanks again, Katherine and Courtney!

Lawrence Lessig ... speaking to a packed house at the DIA user conference keynote.

(ot) Seating nailed down at the power strip oasis. Why are there never enough outlets? airports are a special offender in this ... or, maybe i should think about a computer with more than 30 seconds of battery life.

I was talking with a friend the other day thinking of starting a blog of her own, and it got me trying to parse through the deliverable benefits you get from this sort of enterprise.

Community, active learning ... those things are great, and very real. But the one most quantifiable to a bottom-line-oriented boss is likely to be search.

Every post on a blog is a signpost that says, "here's a resource about X" -- for months or years afterwards when people punch the keywords into Google. It's an incredibly powerful, cheap and genuine search strategy and for any charity whose issue isn't solely indicated by incredibly crowded search environments like "Britney Spears panties". Every day, we see a steady trickle of traffic on topics we've covered here, both on-topic to our raison d'etre and off.

I got a weird but welcome example of that this week on my other blog. All of a sudden one day, I had huge traffic (by my paltry standards) coming to a single post -- but there was no identifiable link out there. It was all search. Out of nowhere, months after the publication, that post had its highest-traffic day ... and then, it dropped back into obscurity:

What the heck?

Monday's registration deadline for the DIA user conference has passed, but you might have noticed you can still get to the registration page.

Here's the deal: there are about a dozen spots left. We'd like to fill them, but we also need to have a final-final head count for the hotel by the end of the week. So registration is going to be held open to tomorrow, Friday, June 20. That's the stone-cold, after-the-deadline deadline; we won't be able to handle on-site registrations, so if you're still juggling plans or otherwise uncertain, get in touch with us and let us know what's up no later than tomorrow.

This. Is. Hot.

Lawrence Lessig, Stanford law professor, free culture paladin, social change advocate -- man, in short, about the technology activist town -- has just been officially confirmed to keynote the upcoming DemocracyInAction Community Conference.

The conference takes place June 26-27 in downtown Washington, D.C.; Lessig will address the morning plenary on Friday, June 27th on "Change Congress". Maybe you caught him at the recent National Conference on Media Reform?

You'll find him on the expanded agenda also just released.

Did we mention (repeatedly?) that that's on top of two days' wall-to-wall Salsa training, online strategizing, and elbow rubbing with the best and brightest?

Did we mention there are only three days left to register?

"When you're staring at the computer screen, you actually believe that you're in a dimly lit basement staring at a computer screen."

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Don't put it off another day -- register now!

The speakers list is coming together, and dang if it isn't a fine one. Rub elbows with the likes of:

• Marty Kearns (Green Media Toolshed, Net-centric Campaigns)
• Judith Freeman (New Organizing Institute)
• Marc Laitin (Consultant)
• Colin Delany (e.politics)
• Jenn Smith (Watershed)
• Allyson Kapin (Rad Campaign)
• David Taylor (Radical Designs)
• Rosalyn Lemieux  (Consultant)
• Alan Rosenblatt (Center for American Progress)
• Trina Zahller (Oil Change International)

And crib organizing notes from the best and brightest, like

• MomsRising
• Center for American Progress
• Oceana
• 1SkyBrave
• Step It Up
• Oil Change International
• CIVIC
• True Majority
• Genocide Intervention Network
• Code Pink

Did we mention that you're running out of time to register?

Last-minute shoppers, the June 16 deadline for registration is fast approaching.

Maybe you've been busy. Haven't had time yet. Been waiting on a few things to fall into place. We've all been there.

But the calendar has rolled over to June and space is limited, so now's the time to make the time to register.

Smart New York City communications consultant Big Duck -- DIA hearts Big Duck -- has been paddling into the wonderful world of podcasting on nonprofit communications.

It's a nice addition to their "resources" section, well worth grazing for articles. There's a fresh one posted this week called "Taglines -- your org in seven words or less".