Tech Soup

MARCH 7, 2014

Gayle Samuelson Carpentier,TechSoup Global’s Chief Business Development Officer, is a newly minted member of the Nonprofit Technology Network's (NTEN) board of directors. Gayle does other work as well. Her first term on the NTEN Board runs through Spring 2017.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 26, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology How to choose a CRM March 26, 2008 I’ll be doing a webinar on open source CRMs tomorrow. One of the fascinating things to me is how quickly the CRM space is evolving. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 8, 2008

Thanks to twitter (hat tip to marshallk ), I learned about today’s big news: Google, Plaxo and Facebook joined the Data Portability working group. And, of course, nonprofits should be especially keen on being able to keep control of their data. This is, of course, great news. I’ll keep you posted, for sure.

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NTEN

MARCH 19, 2012

In 2011, NTEN, with support from the Knight Foundation , convened the CTOs for Good forum and conducted follow-up interviews with the participants in order to document and share the group’s experiences and challenges. The group addressed a number of issues over the course of the year, many of which are reflected in this white paper.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 9, 2007

July 9, 2007 So I talk a lot about both open source software, and the preciousness of one’s own data. I tout the benefits of open source software. It’s not as bad as Thunderbird, except, of course, it doesn’t integrate with Thunderbird. Open source projects do get better.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 5, 2009

In the realm of things in my life that this blog is meant to cover, I have two passions: data, and moving data around, and open source software. I’ll always be talking about open source software, particularly as it relates to web applications, but more generally as well.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 17, 2008

I’m on the Evaluating Open Source panel, with Laura Quinn and Catherine Lane, which should be great. This year, I’m much more clear about the directions my work is going in, and what I’m looking for at NTC. And of course, there is Penguin Day !! I’m looking forward to it. Be Helpful.

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Tech Soup

MAY 16, 2014

After Jason Shim won the 2014 NTEN Award in March, I thought I’d have a look to see why Amy Sample Ward and company thought so highly of him. Of course he does great work leading the organization's national digital strategy, and they have plenty of work to do. First, Jason Shim is not a famous guy.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 9, 2008

Now, of course, as a techie, and someone with a home network, and multiple computers, and varied projects, there is always a list like this. Needless to say, I did absolutely nothing to get it to work. Plugged it in, and it just worked. Of course with my mac, I opened up the system preferences, checked a button, and, voila!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 25, 2008

In fact, that experience, and the work I did around it with that organization, was the first step into this whole nonprofit technology field. I’ve learned a lot about FOSS since then, of course, and the other aspects of FOSS have also come to be very important to me. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 14, 2008

And I get to highlight the work of some of my favorite bloggers, too. She suggests not to panic, and not to change course – keep steady, and keep communicating. Recently, in working with a number of our domestic violence organizations we came up with a logo for the message. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 10, 2008

But I have really come to believe that the way that we work with people is as important as the “final&# outcome. In the last few months, I was involved in helping three organizations choose vendors for varied technology projects, and in the course of that time, I talked with almost a dozen technology vendors of one type or another.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 13, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology WeAreMedia Project August 13, 2008 Yet another great NTEN project is happening, spearheaded by Beth Kanter, to develop a Social Media toolkit for Nonprofits. I think I can write something up. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 17, 2008

Leverage the power of the open platform of Salesforce.com, and do the work that nonprofits (and consultants) have been having to do to bang Salesforce.com into shape as a donor database. It may, depending on pricing, even give the open source CiviCRM a bit of competition. And make it reasonably priced. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 17, 2008

BlueAvocado is a new online blog/magazine/website specifically for folks who work in and with nonprofits. Of course, it’s only a study of Convio’s clients – but it’s interesting nonetheless. { I wonder how many foundations will go for it, though. It looks very promising. I’m looking forward to reading it.

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NTEN

JUNE 15, 2009

I love that it's open source, open API, and all kinds of other open. Maybe they aren't AS open as All for Good, but wouldn't working with the existing sites to make them more open have been more productive? The All for Good effort doesn't seem to live up to that standard. That's great.

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Tech Soup

MAY 16, 2014

After Jason Shim won the 2014 NTEN Award in March, I thought I’d have a look to see why Amy Sample Ward and company thought so highly of him. Of course he does great work leading the organization's national digital strategy, and they have plenty of work to do. First, Jason Shim is not a famous guy.

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NTEN

MARCH 15, 2010

I attended "In Code We Trust: Open Government Awesomeness" at SXSWi on Friday. Panelists Noel Hidalgo , Alissa Black and Dmitry Kachaev shared what their governments -- the cities and states they work for -- are doing to live up to that presidential mandate. It's another thing for NTEN to lead in this area.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 30, 2007

First, some of you might know that the new version of the NOSI primer has been in the works. It’s new and updated for the realities of the nonprofit technology and free and open source worlds of 2007. I keep discovering new and exciting free and open source web platforms. One of which is called Elgg.

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NTEN

MARCH 4, 2011

With just two weeks until the event, MobileCause (the co-host of Innogive) has decided to extend this deal to the NTEN community and enable 50 additional nonprofits the chance to attend the conference for just $99. Thanks to Verizon Foundation, many nonprofits will be able to attend Innogive’s Mobile Giving Applied.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 15, 2007

emphasis mine) &# ooooooh… During the NTEN call on Connect, they had mentioned that they were only going to publish sample code in C# and Java. Open has 3 components, APIs, Database Connectors, and Extensions. They work by REST via POST, or JSON. I wrote a piece a while ago saying the open API is the new black.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 12, 2007

At least in Massachusetts, the majority of nonprofits work with network support people who don’t focus totally on nonprofit organizations (there are some wonderful exceptions, however, of companies that focus on the sector.) But since most Linux distributions are free (as in beer), that’s not really quite the way to look at it.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

Of course, like all open source software, it is “free as in kittens&# – but this particular kitten is pretty grown up, and already spayed and litter trained. programmers work on OOo. They are having 35 (!) IBM’s reputation is bound to help increase adoption of OpenOffice.org. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 10, 2008

A theory of practice, in my mind, outlines the methods and ideals behind how I get work done with clients. This theory includes the following elements that I think are key to my work: Listening. The vendor is expert at what they do, but cannot always provide a channel of communication that the client can really work with.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

Of course, there is a lot of buzz about Sprout. Think of Blist as a really interesting combination of really pretty Excel, with some very cool features thrown in from FileMakerPro, in a sweet looking interface, that works in any web browser. I am, of course, waiting for Beth to tell us. Have a look at the demo. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 24, 2008

I’ve basically switched to using my Mac mini for just about everything except the bit of systems admin and coding I do, because it’s just so much easier to set up things on Linux for that type of work. And, of course, there are plenty of peripherals that don’t work with Macs.) This is where Linux will shine.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 18, 2007

I looked over Allan Benamer’s post on the Convio and Kintera initiatives, I looked harder at the Convio Open and Kintera Connect docs, and I also had a chat with some Kintera folk. Of course, the API was only one part of Convio’s initiative, so I do still think they come out ahead, a bit. I have a few comments. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 17, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology The search for good web conferencing August 17, 2007 I decided, perhaps rashly, that one way of exposing people to, and training people on, open source software, was by doing web conferencing.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 28, 2006

Unfortunately, the nptech world hasn’t yet caught on to the “Planet&# phenomenon of the open source world (see Planet Ubuntu Women.) These are sites that are simply aggregators of the blogs of those involved in a particular open source project (like, in this case, women involved in Ubuntu ). Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 1, 2007

I have owned about a dozen Macintosh computers (or clones) over the course of 20 years. Things “just work&# (for the most part – apparently Leopard has been having issues.) I have been an Apple user since 1980, and a Macintosh owner since 1987. Those of you who are loyal Mac users are gasping. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 19, 2007

If ten similar nonprofit organizations came together to build a system that would work for them, they each would get 10 times the software that they could afford individually. But they are so busy living in that mentality of scarcity and competition, that they can’t do that kind of collaboration. This reminds me of a true story.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 6, 2007

So there was the saga of migrating my data from Apple’s proprietary address book to Evolution (and of course, dealing with the beast that Evolution is.) And, to top it off, I had to make things more complicated last week, because I decided to get a Palm PDA again. found a great, really cheap E2 on Ebay.) Be Helpful.

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NTEN

MAY 4, 2009

Of course, we wish we could recognize ALL the deserving folks out there, but here are the highlights from this year: . Flickr Photo: ann.a.liese The NTEN Award is given each year to a person who lives the values of our community. NTEN Member John Merritt, from the YMCA of San Diego County , embodies all of these ideals.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 24, 2007

Like many who work in this sector, I cared more about the missions of my clients than I did about my own income, although I also needed to put food on the table. and “We’ve designed Yugma to work seamlessly between Mac, Windows and Linux.&# I had good intentions, like virtually all software vendors do. But, I was myopic anyway.

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NTEN

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

The IT industry is overwhelmed with companies and courses and products aimed at the commercial world. After all, those organizations must know what works when it comes to IT -- they spend a lot more time and money on it. Proper use of open source software can make systems easier to expand and integrate with others.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 13, 2009

Yes, it might be surprising, but I got a friendly email from fellow NTEN Board Member Steve McLaughlin, who also happens to be head of all things internet (more formally, Director, Internet Solutions) at Blackbaud. This all is, of course, above and beyond the megabucks you’re already paying for Rasier’s Edge.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 3, 2009

You might think that comparing four different open source packages that, in essence, do pretty the same thing (in a broad sense) would be a cakc walk. If it had been, we would have done a lot more work on how to measure security. Of course, I totally agree with you that more eyeballs on code leads to more vulnerabilities shown.

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