Alex Steed is a freelance journalist, activist, and online community management consultant based in Boston and Portland, Maine. He currently serves as executive editor of MakeSomethingHappen.net, where he writes about online organizing and the power of collective action. Since his teens, Alex has used writing to explore global social change movements and youth engagement. He has directed or worked with youth media projects including Blunt Youth Radio, Just Naive Enough, Angioplasty Media, and Hip Hop Without Borders. In the past several years, he has enjoyed varying levels of involvement with the Northwestern Global Engagement Summit and Maine Youth Leadership. During the fall of 2008, he will be documenting and analyzing grassroots organization efforts in over 30 cities nationwide in a project entitled "Millennials Changing America: The Next Generation of Organizing."