Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 12, 2006

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology OSS User communities December 12, 2006 One of the things that can make (or break) an open source tool is the community around it. It’s definitely worth a read. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 14, 2007

Earlier this week, I wrote a post on about the NTEN CRM satisfaction survey. The whole point of the post was to crow about how positive the open source results were. NTEN did a great job of beginning to approach this topic, and it was great data. To my mind, it bodes well for the open source tools.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 25, 2007

But I might write an entry or two on my personal blog , if you’re interested. { Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Forgot to say … September 25, 2007 I’m on vacation/fiction writing retreat this week. at 1:17 pm Happy writing!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 26, 2008

Taking a slow, leisurely drive. I won’t be blogging here, and I know that my work will be cut out for me in terms of catching up when I land. 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

DECEMBER 10, 2007

They’ve included some new features like a new personal homepage with things like “Company Updates&# – news about your company, and other business-friendly features. Also, they have a partnership with Business Week – so you can see how you are connected to companies and indivuals covered by clicking on links.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology What I’m learning November 30, 2007 It’s been mostly fun so far at the Open Translation event here in Zagreb. It’s also really interesting to see how free and open source fits into all of this.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 21, 2007

More lately, I’ve been working to focusing my advising practice on helping people implement open source software (mostly server-side) in their organizations, providing advice and training. This is the 6th, and last time I will do this. Because I’ve decided that no matter what, I’m not going back. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 27, 2008

For one client, I am their technology go-to person, since they are really small, and have no tech staff. I’d also love to consult with for-profit vendors who are thinking about dipping their toes into offering support for open source projects, or open sourcing their software. Gotta work on that. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 20, 2006

Part Vb:APIs October 20, 2006 This morning, I sat in on the " Great Open API Debate " hosted by NTEN. First off, a tip o’ the hat to NTEN for organizing this, the participants of the panel for an interesting conversation, and Mark Bolgiano from the Council on Foundations for awesome moderation.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 10, 2008

But that may be a personal pipe dream. ;-) 2 dilettante 03.11.08 I’d love to see that as part of the criteria for evaluating a vendor–what is their process for evaluating themselves. 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

MARCH 20, 2008

MPower Open , an enterprise CRM, is both open source, and has great open APIs. Convio keeps drinking the “open&# coolaid (although they have a ways to go.) Wish I would have had more time to visit in person at the conference, but I look forward to reading your NTC follow up posts. Be Helpful.

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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

JANUARY 29, 2008

I am pretty instantly aware of when the person I’m talking with knows what they are doing. I like proposals that focus more on the project, and show clear understanding of the project. Pretty presentation with no content is useless. I’m turned off instantly by sales-speak. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 15, 2007

These are, for pretty obvious reasons, the most interesting to me personally. They also are opening a new data center, as well as bringing Akamai technology into the mix. There are two initiatives that they have that I’ll talk most about, their “Connect&# initiative, and their data warehousing initiative. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 6, 2007

No matter the seeming outcome, know that you have made a difference in the life of at least one person. I am still a novice in the world of nonprofits, but certainly not in helping people. My theory – do what you can for others. Thanks for your great insights. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 19, 2007

This is actually something I struggle with on a personal level, so I can relate to it operating in organizations. 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. 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

OCTOBER 1, 2007

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. Theoretically, you COULD convince your friends to move along with you — thus bringing your personal network and content to another social network. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 18, 2006

at 1:27 am From my personal experience after using both: Sitemeter scripts are slow and increase your page load time, whereas the Google Analytics script is fast! I appreciate your patience as I know my ignorance was showing. There’s so much to learn about blogging, but I am improving but slowly, very slowly. 6 Debjit 01.01.10

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 2, 2007

I’m enjoying finding ways to integrate tech and personal/organizational development, and I’ll look to do more of that in my writing. Ironically, I’m actually involved in a number of tech initiatives through my Leadership Coaching work at Stanford. Thanks again–I hope all’s well with you. Be Helpful.

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NTEN

JANUARY 22, 2009

This method is great for its ease of use and immediacy but will not allow you to add any sound effects, music, or cut in other voices and input. Audacity (open source software for Windows, Linux, or Mac) and Garage Band (Mac only) are two of the most common tools podcasters use. The bit rate determines the quality of the audio.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 17, 2007

In addition, the person getting the email is clearly told who sent the email. Data – We collect only data that is on the public web like all other search engines and never display personally identifiable information (phone, email, address). Please let me know what can be done to make it more clear. 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.) at 3:50 pm CiviCRM and Drupal (& Joomla) 01.26.09 7 Jon Stahl 01.20.09

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 10, 2008

Should the communications person use twitter to connect with other nonprofit communications professionals? Heck, yeah, I could easily argue it will help them in their work. Should they spend a bit of time tying their RSS feed (if they have one) to a twitter account? Be Helpful.

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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. What is most exciting to you personally and professionally as it relates to blogging? The paper is a must read.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 15, 2007

Phil’s observation about less money to be made in open source has this choice retort: “Remember, trying to measure the information / attention / netocratic economy in dollars is like trying to figure out the worth of Microsoft by the number of acres it occupies.&# 3 Beth Kanter 04.20.07 Would you agree? Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 10, 2006

Salesforce is a serious tool with a ton of functionality and it it supported by a growing community – some very much into open source software, building an ecology that goes beyond metaphors but that provides extremely interesting and useful tools. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 12, 2007

This is because all providers start out with some personal experiences or biases, and most are too busy taking care of clients to spend lots and lots of time gaining new expertise in a broad range of topics – they need to focus. No technology vendor, even the largest ones, can support everything. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 16, 2009

This is, for sure, one of the most robust open source CMS to CRM integrations out there, and one that seems to be getting pretty close to providing very powerful integration “out-of-the-box&# – instead of having to piece things together and do customized code, which is more common than not. Be Helpful.

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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. But, that was then, and this is now. But, that was then, and this is now.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

There are tricks like this [link] which I personally find ugly. Also ran in to some issues with the convention/humanization of variable names (ie Person/people table). Paginating those 2 is a different story since by default the parameters that specify the page you’re in do not distinguish which model you need to paginate.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 7, 2007

The licenses are as follows: Personal License: If you have purchased a copy/subscription to the Journal with a personal license, this means that it is for your personal use. You may make copies for backup purposes or to allow you to personally use this report on more than one computer.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 8, 2007

They struggle mightily with software, no matter whether it’s free/open source or proprietary, shrink-wrapped or custom-built, on their desktops or web-hosted, which they generally spend extraordinary amounts of time and/or money on. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 24, 2007

Unfortunately, the most recent trend, which I have experienced all too much (and I’m sure you all have too), is to simply follow a script with the person who needs support. It was nice to feel like someone actually bothered to write it down, and for the person talking with me bothered to read it. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 1, 2007

You’re not the only person that doesn’t like to share their Google ID and password with other websites. That’s kinda cool. { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Drew Garcia 10.01.07 at 6:00 pm Michelle, Thanks for the post on TimeBridge. Be Helpful.

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NTEN

MAY 5, 2015

The 20-person department pulls the information from scanned PDFs of the filings, enter the information into their database, and classify the information in the Foundation Center taxonomy. One of my first jobs in tech 1,000 years ago was as “Text Production Lead” on a music encyclopedia CD-ROM (Google it, kids).

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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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