Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 11, 2010

We were chatting with her about what kind of work we do, and she asked “do you do social CRM?&# I’m hoping that someone (hint, hint) will write the blog post or report taking off on this work, and articulate the major nonprofit use cases for Social CRM. A tweet to a specific action (like a petition?).

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 14, 2011

For those folks in a position to choose which database software to use, (for example, you use VPS systems like Amazon, Slicehost, Linode, etc.,) From the website : In most respects MariaDB will work exactly as MySQL : all commands, interfaces, libraries and APIs that exist in MySQL also exist in MariaDB. Switch to PostgreSQL.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 23, 2010

So the lessons: 1) If you are embarking on a custom development project (such as a case management, for example) exhaust every possible option of using and customizing/modifying existing tools (Salesforce, CiviCRM, SugarCRM, other open source tools) before you begin to consider custom development from scratch.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 3, 2009

Unfortunately, it came after 4 long days of conferencing, after many exhausting days of work, so I wasn’t at my peak. I saw the example of it used for the Physician Health Program in Canada. It’s quite good, and there are some useful docs to see it at work on the CiviCRM wiki. and it is awe-some. The Alpha of 2.3

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 9, 2008

It’s a great model for the vendor, when it works, but it encourages stasis in markets and silly lawsuits designed to horde, not grow customer value.&# I agree, and I think that bodes well for us as more and more open source software is adopted in the sector (like CiviCRM, for example.).

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 5, 2009

Organic Groups - since I haven’t personally implemented OG, I didn’t know a lot about the innards, and how it really works. He gave some sweet examples of it’s use (like teamsugar.com ) which is amazing, and made me totally rethink using Elgg. It was a great introduction, and I’m totally sold on it.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 9, 2007

So, here is a real life example of someone with a measly 195 records in her contacts database. So my next task is to really try out evolution, and see how it works for me. Its the client I use at work, but I have even fewer contacts than you do. I rail against vendors who promote lock-in. Actually there is a fourth option.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 29, 2008

I spent 3 hours struggling with the Nvidia drivers (that’s the on-board video that my motherboard has) and my xorg configurations still don’t work. (X I’ll send off queries to the right mailing lists and forums, and probably eventually get it all worked out. No happiness for me. at 9:41 pm Linux desktops?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 17, 2006

One of the best examples of the use of APIs are Google Map mashups. Other examples include desktop applications that allow uploading photos to flickr. Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Web 2.0 for geeks is APIs.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 8, 2012

An example: One of the first weeks I was here, I remember going to Farmer Joe''s on Fruitvale, and walking by a black lesbian couple getting out of their Prius. But it has so much going for it, and so many dedicated people who care deeply about it, and work to make it a better place. And they had Birkenstocks on--or were they Keens?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 21, 2007

They do a good job of using examples for each of these things (like why Southwest Airlines is so successful, and why the Kidney Heist urban legend sticks so well, among other stories. It uses examples and such, but it is not anywhere near as engaging and readable as “Made to Stick.&# He thinks that time-based billing is bad.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

My role has been to gather up the use cases (specific examples of translation processes). That’s been a very interesting process, and we have been generating some good examples that will be really helpful in the process of figuring out what tools are present that can do what’s needed, and what gaps exist.

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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. He talks about three examples which have become classic – free/open source software, SETI@Home , and Wikipedia. Or given up? 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

JULY 27, 2008

’&# She gives some great suggestions and examples Joanne Fritz talks about three big mistakes – outdated information, insufficient contact information, and outdated design. She makes some great points, and gives good tips to make changes. Check This List 07.28.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

There are a few examples of SaaS that are based on open source projects, although most SaaS are proprietary – the code is never meant to be released. And with mashups becoming more and more popular, there’s a kind of meta-collaboration at work now too. But the real story is much more complicated. 3 Jon Biedermann 09.25.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 8, 2012

An example: One of the first weeks I was here, I remember going to Farmer Joe's on Fruitvale, and walking by a black lesbian couple getting out of their Prius. But it has so much going for it, and so many dedicated people who care deeply about it, and work to make it a better place. And they had Birkenstocks on--or were they Keens?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 19, 2007

On the theme of this week in the US – Thanksgiving day, Elisa, of Nonprofit Congress, is thankful for her work. She’s thankful for both the practical, and more abstract ways her work sustains her. Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention has some great examples (that I’ll be using really soon!)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 14, 2009

I’ll have follow up posts on specific examples of this integration using open source tools (on one end or the other, or both.) We worked with Ianncomm for the Drupal development and Frazny for the Salesforce work. at 1:56 pm I’m currently working with a developer that has a Nonprofit Event Management SugarCRM build.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 18, 2007

From both a business point of view and from the point of view of how our sector should work to heighten transparency in society at large, there’s no reason to limit the ability of coders to learn about and discuss the API at hand. And the big guys have already done this work, check out the way Google and Amazon distribute their API s.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 13, 2009

It is, in fact, a great example of integration of a CMS and a CRM. You can get this level of integration with Drupal/CiviCRM for sure, and likely Plone/Salesforce, and Drupal/Salesforce (with a bit more work.) More on those later.

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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

SEPTEMBER 17, 2007

It is an internal assessment tool which helps organizations figure out what parts of their online strategy are working, and what parts might need tweaking. If they want to brag about an accomplishment (a certain number of page views or visitors to a particular campaign page, for example), that’s fine. 9 admin 09.22.07

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 31, 2008

Earlier, I’d found that the only tools that would work with presenters using Linux were ReadyTalk and WebHuddle. Here’s an example of some activists using it: [link] And, yes, I’m doing some work for ooVoo. even works great in spotty wifi areas. ReadyTalk is proprietary and not free (as in beer).

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 15, 2007

They work by REST via POST, or JSON. Their code on the server-based method examples only include PHP at this point (the client based method code examples are in the expected HTML and Javascript.) They have the gold standard in API and I think it will be a long time before anyone else gets to that level.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 10, 2008

I think that Twitter is, in many ways, a harbinger of the future – I think eventually, a lot of things that happen between people over the net will work a lot like twitter, even if it’s not actually twitter – social networks carrying short snippets of people’s thoughts, ideas and events. Sure, why not.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 29, 2008

at 4:57 pm Hi – just one point, I see in nptech world the bend/promotion towards Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla alot which is no bad thing I work successfully with all of them, they are all good and great, and fairly easy to use for the end user. 3 Laura Whitehead 02.05.08 4 admin 02.05.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 13, 2008

BTW, do you know of or have an example from your clients where they have thoughtfully considered a facebook strategy or using these tools and it really wasn’t the right fit? however, as you all know so well, I’m a realist. { at 10:54 am Recent Links Tagged With "millenials" - JabberTags 12.04.08 I think I can write something up.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 29, 2007

Toward the end, a young man, who worked with urban kids of color on media and music, commented that he didn’t really know how to get access to the kinds of things available, and he noticed how few people of color were in the room.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 6, 2008

“If we build it they will come&# only works in the movies. { But there are successful counter examples. It’s going to take some real elbow grease of reaching out to people who might begin to form the kernel of a development community to get that going. 1 trackback } Bookmarks about News 11.09.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 7, 2007

It has been fun, in many ways, but I’ve not figured out the utility for me in terms of my work, although others have had a better time of it. I’ve always been an advocate of open data and open standards, and Facebook is a great example of a one-way street. Wired says : Therein lies the rub. 2 admin 08.08.07

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 28, 2006

I am working on several projects, both collective and personal. And, of course, not everyone I work with is choosing the same to do list or project manager. And even if they were, they might not integrate well (For example, I use three different Basecamp accounts – which don’t integrate with each other.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 27, 2006

And the major engine that makes these three types of ephemeral media really work, is RSS, which is the subject of the next post. I can think of two organizations that I’ve worked with, which are, in a sense, case studies for why to have a blog, or not to have a blog. It could be argued that iTunes made podcasting mainstream.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 18, 2007

Can you tell us some examples of how Excel is superior or more supple than Calc? of me, but what I really want is something powerful that just works locally. Technorati Tags: microsoft , web2.0 { 4 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Scott Wells 04.18.07 2 phil jones 04.19.07 at 6:14 am Thanks for the comment.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

For now, unless something strange happens, I’ll settle on Cake – although I’ll not be spending too much time on it, since I’m working hard to grok Drupal. I’ve really liked working with it for small to mid sized projects. There’s for example, no sane way of specifying joins.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 7, 2007

You may post it to your intranet, so long as access to that intranet is restricted to those who work for your organization [emphasis mine]. The Public Library of Science is a wonderful example of a reputable, respected peer-reviewed journal where articles are freely available to the public. I’m really not sure.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 24, 2007

Is this a problem that is critical to their work, or a “pebble in the shoe&# kind of problem – annoying, but not urgent? All of this works within whatever relationship you have with a client. Also, you remember how much work you got done when a substitute teacher came to class? What is going on for them?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 6, 2007

For example, Yahoo bought del.icio.us – it didn’t have social bookmarking. There are certainly some examples where it is true. And, I’m sure there are more to come. There basically are three types of software acquisitions that companies make. The first is to acquire a company that does something that you do not.

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