Holly Ross, Executive Director of NTEN, started this morning with a passionate and heartfelt welcome to the participants in this year's conference. Holly's enthusiasm and excitement for how nonprofits can use technology to help solve problems and make the world better is contagious.

She then introduced David Pogue, consumer technology columnist and blogger extraordinare' from The New York Times, who entertained the audience with his view of the three hottest technologies to watch - two being voice over IP and mobile technology. As David shared his thoughts on technology the crowd cheered his singing and waved their iPhones in the air - don't think it's all geeks here, I was at a concert during SXSW where the audience held up their cell phones like the lighters of the 70s and 80s. It was an engaged and inspired crowd. (That is David and Holly in the photo.)

 As David talked about the impact of wireless technology on our culture, it dawned on me that my morning was a proof point to his talk. At 6:30, my 7-year old son called me on my cell phone to make sure I received the update for his NCAA Basketball Tournament Bracket - please do not judge my parenting, the kid is obsessed with football and basketball (reading and art too). He was calling my cell phone, using voice over IP technology from our cable provider, after emailing me over our wireless home network. His expectations of feedback where immediate and on his terms.

As my son and my daughters age, I wonder how the nonprofit sector will engage with the "un-tethered constituents", as our CEO Gene Austin refers to them. A recent survey by The Nonprofit Times showed that nearly 20 percent of the donors they surveyed lived without a landline phone for the past 12 months. With the growth in mobile technology that number will continue to grow.  What should nonprofits be doing to engage these "un-tethered" supporters when and where they want to connect to their favorite causes?

I'm off to hear what Jed Alpert, CEO of Mobile Commons, Katrin Verclass of Mobile Active have to teach us. I also enjoyed watching a demo of the Mobile Commons integration with Convio in the Open Lab just after the plenary session.  Time to grab my mobile phone and run. (Below, James Young demonstrates the Facebook application.)