Microvolunteering?!?

I originally heard about microvolunteering on a podcast a while back.  The idea that we might be able to use short intervals of time to help an organization with some of their needs sounded novel at the time.  For example, if your plane gets delayed and you have a couple extra minutes of free time you hadn't planned on having, then you could sign on to a website or use a mobile phone app to see if there were any projects you could contribute to in your extra 15 minutes.

To be quite honest, the jury is still out for me on this approach to volunteering.  I can see how it may help make volunteering more accessible to some people, but will it do so at the detriment of the relationship that is typically built between the organization and the volunteer?  I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea.  A couple of links with more info are below.

• NPR Article on Mocrovolunteering
• Extraordinaries Website-built the mobile phone app
• Urbantastic-Microvolunteering site in Canada
  

not sure where this will go

i started the twitter feed @volunteerwords a couple of weeks ago to encourage folks who were volunteering!  i know that in my position as a volunteer manager, i don't get to say thanks enough to my own volunteers, so i figured that there were plenty of people out there volunteering that might need some extra encouragement.  i know i have felt under-appreciated as a volunteer in the past.  anyway...just with some quotes of encouragement and finding folks tweeting about their volunteer work i set out to work!  but i have been getting some feedback that i want to capture and share with others as well...hence starting the blog.  hopefully this can be a place for conversation about volunteering and volunterism!