Hey folks. Andrew Cohen here. So, I’ve been completely MIA on this blog since introducing myself some months ago. I had promised to help cross-pollinate ideas and news from our consulting work with nonprofit and government organizations. Finally, today, I bring you important and interesting news of an important volunteer effort being facilitated by a new online community.

As you know, Hurricane Ivan, a mammoth storm, is heading toward the Texas coast. It’s due to strike Houston tonight. Two weeks ago, when Hurricane Gustav targeted Louisiana, a bunch of volunteers set up the "Gustav Information Center," an online community to help aggregate and disseminate storm-related information. Within a week, the community had grown to over 600 volunteers. The community’s software toolkit included Ning, MediaWiki, Google Maps, Flickr, Twitter, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Since the storms just keep coming, the site was renamed and the scope was expanded. Here is my write-up on the Hurricane Information Center on Forum One’s Influence blog.

This powerful storm has already devastated our neighbors in Haiti and Cuba. I’d encourage you to sign up at www.hurricanes08.org where you can learn a lot about the current state of rapid-deployment social tools. More importantly, you will help make a difference in the lives of thousands of people.