Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 2, 2010

Conservative causes of all sorts have discovered the power of the kinds of technologies I’ve been helping nonprofits with, and are au courant. I remember also, from those heady days, the idea that we could help nonprofits be more effective by encouraging them to be more proactive around replacing their hardware.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 5, 2008

I’ve been helping a client hire a temporary project manager, and so in the interview process one of the questions I ask is how people keep up with change in the field. I’m a fantastic book learner, which means I’m a great blog/twitter learner, too. In some ways, I have been blessed with the gift of osmosis.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 17, 2008

So, if you want to catch up with me, email, and I’ll send you my phone # so you can call or text me, or twitter me. { So, if you want to catch up with me, email, and I’ll send you my phone # so you can call or text me, or twitter me. { Be Helpful. I’m looking forward to it. And I hope to bring home a penguin!)

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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. Update: LinkedIn, Flickr, SixApart and Twitter have now joined Dataportability.org. Be Helpful. Read/Write Web and TechCruch have good coverage of this.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

del.icio.us (sorry, I couldn’t help it): I actually barely use the social networking capacity of delicious. Twitter : The nonprofit technology community has chosen twitter as the microblogging service that it uses, so even though I use ping.fm Very few people I care about are there (and they twitter too, anyway.).

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 17, 2007

You know why I started to twitter. Just like how search engines allow you to quickly find anything you want, future technologies will help you easily connect with friends from anywhere. BTW, I’m paranoid enough that I wrote a tool for easily finding people on Twitter that doesn’t require you to give up your Gmail account.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 14, 2008

There are an increasing number of third party apps that can use it (it supports the Twitter API.) twitter can’t do that What do you think? Be Helpful. The documentation is a bit lacking, and it’s clear that it’s a very new project. So I’m on identi.ca now ( follow pearlbear ). you can have private groups.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 26, 2008

I use WP pretty much everyday, between my own blogs, and helping clients maintain theirs. This was the year for twitter. This was the year that nonprofits discovered twitter, and the year I integrated twitter into my workflow. Open Source Tools. WordPress. I haven’t yet become an Evernote devotee, but I might.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 9, 2008

It can keep track of your Twitter friends, etc. These posts on open source applications are so helpful. Be Helpful. Flock is the “social browser.&# For bookmarking, it uses your del.icio.us It can bring in your photos (and the photos of your contacts) from flickr. It’s amazingly good. A true gift!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

services like Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, text messaging, all of these made this possible. It allowed people to get involved and helped motivate. But there is no question that there is a technical aspect to what made this possible. New technologies, the web, Web 2.0 Plus some amazing underlying technical infrastructure.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 13, 2008

A year ago, I was bear-ish on Facebook, and said I wouldn’t Twitter. Now, I tell my clients that they really have to think about a Facebook strategy, and that nonprofit staff can gain a lot from networks like Twitter. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 14, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Tidbits February 14, 2008 These are tidbits of things I’ve gotten recently from vendors, or gotten via feeds or twitter. Be Helpful. Kintera opens a Developers Challenge.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 19, 2007

Her perspective is that the scarcity mentality of nonprofits (the idea that there is only one pie, and we only get our small slice) helps keep nonprofits from taking full advantage of social media (i.e. No web development help. Wouldn’t helping them raise money themselves fulfill their mission?) Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 10, 2007

Be Helpful. I think in some ways, this might decrease LinkedIn’s usefulness as a platform for fundraising or constituent-building by nonprofits (it has always seemed less viable for this than either Facebook or MySpace.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 17, 2008

I started a little Twitter conversation about it, and people seemed intrigued. Be Helpful. As a funder, you can put up RFPs (at a cost), and people can apply directly online. It looks interesting, and potentially useful. I wonder how many foundations will go for it, though. It looks very promising.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 9, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Frustrations March 9, 2008 As some of you who follow me on Twitter know, I ran into frustrations a few days ago with WPA. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 14, 2008

And lastly, since I’m hosting, I get to mention my recent post on Twitter and nonprofits. Be Helpful. And Katya tells us why Seth Godin is right about people being lazy and in a hurry, and gives us some tips on how to use that. Next week, the Carnival is being hosted at A Small Change – Fundraising Blog. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 8, 2007

I even remember writing a grant to some federal agency that probably no longer exists to help create a local infrastructure to get nonprofits online. Be Helpful. It was, at the time, the only affordable way to do it – there was no broadband, and a T1 was far outside of the realm of affordability for nonprofits. When was that?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

Be Helpful. The description: “ Talk with Michelle about internal software systems – document and knowledge management, CRM, client management databases, intranets, etc.&# So, come join me. Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 29, 2006

Sometimes, I’ll talk about technologies I think are just cool, and useful, and, well geeky, ’cause I can’t help being a geek. Be Helpful. IPv6 is the next generation Internet Protocol. She wrote a great series of articles for O’Reilly about IPv6. They are worth a read. { They are worth a read. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 11, 2008

Be Helpful. Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology I’m hosting the carnival next week April 11, 2008 (Photo by frankienose ) I’m hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants here, next week. So send in your best of the week! {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

Vote for them , especially the one I’m helping out with (David Geilhufe is the spearhead) on open source CRM. Be Helpful. There are some fabulous sessions proposed for the 2009 NTC , running the whole gamut of nonprofit technology, from planning to Web 2.0, open source, etc. It’s going to be interesting.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 7, 2008

Please take it no matter what the level of use of open source software is in your organization – data on as wide a range of organizations will be helpful to us. Be Helpful. Please encourage your colleagues and clients to take this survey as well.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 27, 2008

But I help them plan their technology initiatives (a new database, a new website, etc.,) help them find the vendors that will do the work by helping them craft good RFPs. I answer all of their tech questions, and solve pretty much all of their tech problems (mostly by helping them figure out who they should call.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 12, 2008

Be Helpful. I’ll be on hiatus for about another week, and will have some long awaited new FOSS tools, as well as other posts that have been brewing for a while. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 23, 2008

Be Helpful. They are doing a CMS satisfaction survey, and the more info that they get, the better. So go rate your CMS ! { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 4, 2008

The surveys could stand some graphic design help, but you can design templates for it. Be Helpful. The admin interface is nice looking, and fairly intuitive. It’s a LAMP stack application. Worth a look if your organization does surveys. { Worth a look if your organization does surveys. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 3, 2008

Be Helpful. Adobe (yeah, Adobe ) joined the Linux Foundation , and released a Linux alpha of Air , their new application platform. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 26, 2008

I also wrote a software choice worksheet , that can help with the process of looking at a wide variety of tools. Be Helpful. Idealware has a great article on CRMs, and how they are different, and how you can begin to figure out what might work best. One of the fascinating things to me is how quickly the CRM space is evolving.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

at 10:36 pm I played with it here: [link] Seesmic is to youtube, as twitter is to blogging. Be Helpful. There were a bunch of other tools, and I look forward to seeing which of them emerges to become more mainstream. { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Beth Kanter 02.05.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Be Helpful. The last time I coded in a CMS was when I was working on the (now dead) perl CMS I wrote many moons ago. So I’m polishing off my PHP skills, and we’ll see where that leads. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 15, 2009

Be Helpful. 3 homefreeorg 11.06.09 at 1:09 pm Thanks so much for the shout out…take a look at the latest article [link] Thanks so much for the support! Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 25, 2007

Be Helpful. But I might write an entry or two on my personal blog , if you’re interested. { 1 trackback } Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change 09.29.07 at 6:09 pm { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Robin 09.25.07 at 1:17 pm Happy writing!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 6, 2008

Be Helpful. This seems like something many nonprofits might want to try out. Hat tip to Jon Stahl for the heads up. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite. Hat tip to Jon Stahl for the heads up. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 13, 2008

Be Helpful. It could happen here. { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 adam nicholson 03.13.08 at 8:48 pm Wow…that’s amazing. What does this mean for us? How much trickle-down? Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 3, 2008

Be Helpful. I’m looking forward to talking about free and open source software to this audience. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite. I’m looking forward to talking about free and open source software to this audience. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 25, 2008

Be Helpful. Not waiting for Android vaporware (my research suggested it was probably a long time coming, and would not be on my carrier, AT&T,) I decided to succumb, and buy an iPhone 3G. More on that in a later post. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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