Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 24, 2008

The conference was rich with great speakers and content, and it’s great to see how far things have come. I want to give huge props to Holly and all of the NTEN crew for putting on a fabulous conference. It was incredibly well organized and smooth running, the food and snacks were great, and the parties rocked. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

As one of those monolingual American types, I’m learning a huge amount about what it takes to create open content in different languages. It’s also really interesting to see how free and open source fits into all of this. The event itself has been fab. It is actually pretty mind-boggling. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 18, 2007

I’m still not convinced by any of these social network sites not directly linked to content (unlike del.icio.us Relatively recently, I’d finally, after tons of invitations, joined invested time and energy into my LinkedIn profile. or flickr) – but it’s fun to play with, anyway. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 29, 2008

Soon, we’ll be updating the primer , releasing a report on our survey, starting a training and consulting program, doing a webinar series … phew! Pretty presentation with no content is useless. Lots happening! I like proposals that focus more on the project, and show clear understanding of the project. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 16, 2006

I’m reading this book at the same time as I’ve been working on the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative. I’m realizing that all of the justifications for why I am so into open source and free software is right here in this book! It gets chewy, for sure, but it feels like every chew is worth it.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 25, 2008

In many ways for me, the most important aspect of free and open source software is that it does just that – it levels the playing field so that people and organizations with few resources can have access to quality tools to do what it is they need and want to do in this software-driven world. would all be free (libre).

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 1, 2007

My curmugeonly thoughts fall into three basic categories of sucks: time suck, content suck, privacy suck. At least the content-focused social networks, like del.icio.us, or flickr, or my personal favorite, our own Social Source Commons , there is some there there. They own my profile, and whatever time I spend adding content.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 15, 2007

April 15, 2007 At NTC , there was a lot of talk about the “big three&# open source CMS packages that most people these days in our sector are using: Drupal , Plone , and Joomla. What are all those content types, and where do they appear, and how do you get things to look exactly like you want them? Um, sorta.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 6, 2007

But I think the larger question about folksonomies is important: is efficiency all there is, and in what ways are folksonomies a way for the “folks&# (rather than “experts&# ) to have access to the process of categorizing their own content, and content they care about? What do those guidelines look like? Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

Basically, they partner with localized web media outlets, and provide widgets that contain information about local nonprofits that are connected to content. So this is definitely a tool to watch. good2gether is an interesting concept. Watch the demo. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 28, 2006

apps out there, and beginning to try and use them to create content and organize my life, I have come to the following conclusion: the apps are great, but integration still sucks. And, I also don’t want to do too much cross-posting of content. First, there’s the blogging issue. It’s a great idea, I think.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 15, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Speaking too soon April 15, 2007 I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I wrote my post, a few weeks ago , saying I was done with technology consulting. But then, I had something of an epiphany.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 8, 2008

It is not because you aren’t interested (although many of you might not be), but because Sage is one of those archaic academic publishers who had decided to lock down its authors and their content behind heavy iron walls. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 14, 2009

I know that’s one more thing in a long list of considerations (and it’s generally more important to think about for the CRM – the CMS, if it is modern, and especially if it is open source, will provide few barriers to integration.) What’s involved in this? First, the what – what to integrate?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 7, 2007

August 7, 2007 I’ve been experimenting with the non-content centered social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook for a while now. The content centered ones, like flickr, del.icio.us and our own Social Source Commons , are a different animal.) Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 17, 2007

communities, from LinkedIn to Flickr to … Amazon.com, keeps track of your contacts content. The tools are getting better and better, and one of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 – the APIs, make it all the more simple to aggregate all of someone’s online content. tool to jump in. Or perhaps maybe I won’t even.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 12, 2007

Open Source Feminism - Click to Play. Penguin Day is a day-long workshop for nonprofit organizations to explore the range of issues and options inovlved in using Free and Open Source Software. What are the tactics for supporting online open source communities? What is the gensis of an open source community?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 27, 2006

The originators of blogging probably thought of it mostly as a way for people to be able to easily update their websites quickly, and provide interesting content on a moving basis. Look at what kinds of things you can do to your website, for instance, to create RSS feeds for new content, instead of thinking of starting a blog.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 27, 2007

That's because Michelle was in the Science Building on one end of campus, while I in the Music Building way on the other side. She is also the coordinator for NOSI - Nonprofit Open Source Initiative. Like many of us out there, you work as an independent consultant - so you are paid for your expertise and knowledge.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 24, 2006

I use furl to keep pages that have content that I absolutely want to keep, in case the site goes away (furl could go away, of course, so maybe I should save that stuff to my hard drive – they have a cool export feature.) The next question is, well, how useful is this anyway? Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 8, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology NTC Summary, and Nonprofit Technology Consulting 2.0 And it’s making me think a lot about what I’m going to start calling “Nonprofit Technology Consulting 2.0″

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 17, 2007

And in your case, as the head of a nonprofit open source organization, I think you’re going to find that not publishing site statistics will cause you more grief than you think. What content does the best? That dog won’t hunt. 2 admin 09.18.07 How many people sign up for which webinars? Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 29, 2008

All of the free and open source options did quite well in terms of Quality, Usability, and Value. The other questions, that are really more geared toward particular vendors, for FOSS CMS are not really applicable to the CMS itself, but to the consultants or vendors who implement it – which is bound to be variable.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 6, 2007

If nonprofits want to have a good fundraising platform that they can know won’t be bought and swallowed and changed so that they’ll have to shell out more, it’s time to invest money and effort in an open source platform. We have power and options in using open source solutions. We will fill the void.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 18, 2008

As the author of a custom CMS (it did have the advantage that it was released as open source, but it never caught on, so it still counts as custom) I know what it is like to put my heart and soul (and time) into a CMS, and want my clients to get what they want. Best and easiest out of box *content management* system out there.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 7, 2007

It’s peer reviewed (good), but it’s got a rather restrictive license, and the content is not freely available. How can we talk about promoting change when we’re not pushing this content into the commons? at 5:32 am How do we make great new content if it always needs to be free? But then I looked deeper.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 17, 2007

I was pretty doubtful about the general usefulness of content-less social networking sites (as distinct from those that are content-driven, like flickr and del.icio.us ) but it seems that Facebook is becoming a platform, and has ceased to become simply a social networking site. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

What do these tools allow you to do? Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite. Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 26, 2009

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology CiviCRM and Drupal (& Joomla) January 26, 2009 CiviCRM was the first nonprofit-focused open source CRM (one of only two, at this moment.) Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 9, 2006

sites include a democratic approach to content, organization by tagging, and new, much more flexible and intuitive interfaces. sites include a democratic approach to content, organization by tagging, and new, much more flexible and intuitive interfaces. The technologies generally connected to Web 2.0 Hallmarks of Web 2.0 I think Web 2.0,

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Initially, Substacks primarily focused on branding, organization, and food, but the platform’s political content has grown, and now there are many notable political Substacks. It’s an effective way to access consistent content on topics you care about. Why should you read them? Should you create one?

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