I don’t really think of myself as a pundit, probably because I am very willing to admit that I am sometimes wrong. Sometimes I don’t have enough information and come to somewhat erroneous conclusions because of it. So, in that spirit, I’m eating a bit of, as Katrin called it, humble pie.
A while back, I had a post called “Metaphors” where I lamented the fact that there had been a large movement toward using Salesforce. I questioned the use of business metaphors in nonprofit organizations (which is still something I find problematic,) and questioned the use of sales metaphors in software that nonprofits use.
Well, I didn’t have enough information. Because I’m writing a whitepaper on APIs for NTEN, I had a great conversation with Steve Wright of the Salesforce Foundation, the part of Salesforce that is giving away their services to nonprofit organizations. And I learned a lot about what they are doing, and why. And I think I’ve realized that I jumped to the wrong conclusion about the use of Salesforce in nonprofit organizations. It sounds like they have some pretty interesting ideas about building horizontal platforms, that, in the end, might benefit the sector more than it detracts, especially given the kind of resources they have available to them.
So, live, work, talk to people, and learn more. There are some interesting things brewing in my head about open source and the new ways that the open source ethos and mentality is spreading faster and broader than the actual thing itself. But that’s another post. This is the humble pie post.
Technorati Tags: nptech, openapis, opensource, salesforce
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Sweet woman — where would be the fun if we did not debate? You should get SF and try it out – I’ll let you poke around in our instance :-) Or have te amazing Steve(s) give you a tour. I think the post on open source principles and practices versus code is a fascinating one — I have been thinking a lot about it. That is the brilliance of SF in many ways, and very smart strategy. And others are jumpling on the bandwagon fast, making me think there is a movement in the making after all. Different than what we all imagined just a few years ago but no less interesting to study and use and implement in the NPTech space. So – girl, let’s write about that :-)
And just to let you know: I appreciate you very much. You are a good, wonderful human being.
Katrin
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