I’m warning you – this is snarky.
I was only vaguely following the brou-ha-ha over Causes leaving Myspace. Only vaguely because I don’t really keep close track of the goings on in the Social Networking space: it’s not my passion. I use them a lot, both for work as well as for personal use. I know they are becoming an increasingly important tool for nonprofits in communicating with their constituents, and so I do keep them in my peripheral vision, for sure.
Anyway, in reading the varied reactions to this news, I had to just sigh, and then get annoyed. Sigh because of what feels to me to be the wasted energy that the nonprofit sector has spent over many years, using, hawking, and supporting proprietary tools and companies. Annoyed because it seems the nptech community hasn’t figured this out, even being hit over the head with this over, and over, and over again.
Make no mistake about it – Causes is a for profit company, and they are making what is, I’d bet, a decision based entirely on economics. If you’ve read any of the gloomy news from Silicon Valley, this is just the beginning. Social ventures will not be immune to the blowing winds of economic distress.
If we keep building our nonprofit toolsets on proprietary software and for-profit web services, even if they are free (for now) we are going to be bit by this over and over again. The only way we’re going to get out of this cycle is to channel this energy and resources into open software (including “open” source apps for proprietary web services), open standards, and open networks – things no one can take away.
I love to write blog entries about successful open source efforts – like CiviCRM, or the amazing stuff people are doing in the mobile space. Writing blog entries about for-profit web vendors that make economic decisions that hurt nonprofits because we depend on them too much is just not fun.
Tagged as:
nptech,
opensource,
openstandards,
socialnetworks
Yesterday, I spent the day in Manhattan, at the UNICEF building, with a bunch of folks passionate about the technology in mobile phones, and the ways to use that technology for good. I’ve been a very long time cell phone user (had one since 1998), but I haven’t been involved in implementing a mobile system for an organization, so I had a lot to learn.
The place to find reports on what happend is on the wiki. Also, check out the twitter stream for the #omc09 hashtag.
I was especially interested in the issue of mobile data collection. (I was so interested, I facilitated a session.) And, even more specifically, I’m interested in how to leverage CiviCRM and mobile devices for a range of interesting applications. There are a number of ways to get data from mobile phones into a CRM – and all have advantages and disadvantages, depending on a lot of things.
- Globally, what you can basically depend on is SMS. Smartphones haven’t made it into most of the developing world, nor have 3G networks. So how do you get SMS data into a database system like CiviCRM? You need an SMS gateway, and systems such as RapidSMS to gather data
- Use J2ME to write applications for mobile phones, and send the data via SMS to a central database.
- A tool such as EpiCollect, which is an Android app.
- A slimmed-down, simplified webform to be used on mobile browsers.
One thing that would facilitate this would be a more robust API system in CiviCRM – access to the data via REST or JSON, which would allow CiviCRM to talk with some of the tools out there like Mesh4X.
I learned a ton. Thanks to MobileActive.org and the Open Mobile Consortium for a fabulous event.
Tagged as:
civicrm,
CRM,
Mobile,
nptech,
opensource
Any consulting shop that does significant amounts of implementation and development (as we do) needs a project management and ticketing tool. Basecamp seems to be a standard that many people have reached for. We were using Intervals for a while, which is really a fabulous tool if you do a lot of hourly consulting. We also have been using Google spreadsheets for some elements of project management.
All tools have their strengths and weaknesses. And, in addition, the best tool does nothing without good human project management skills using it. As a shop that practices Agile development (we use an adaptation of scrum methodology that seems to work for a shop that does multiple projects with small teams,) finding a good tool that facilitates instead of hobbles Agile was critical for us.
We found, and have chosen to use Redmine for our project management/ticketing system. You can think of it as a multi-project version of Trac, which is a fabulous ticketing/wiki system that we were initially going to go with. Redmine has the elements of Trac that we liked, with the added ability to track multiple projects. Like Basecamp, Redmine has document storage and messaging systems. It doesn’t have milestones per se, but it does allow you to see tasks in calendar and Gantt views, which is very helpful. Unlike Basecamp, you can add custom fields to tickets, users and other features. Having spent many hours in Basecamp, I actually like Redmine much better. It does even do time tracking, which we won’t use, but is nice to know is there. And the wiki is nice. Basecamp’s Writeboards seem so much more like an add on than integrated.
It’s a Ruby on Rails application, and that was actually kind of fun to finally get to install and play with RoR a tiny bit. And it’s great that it’s free and open source. Although that wasn’t an absolute requirement for us, it is most definitely a plus, given so much of our work is implementing open source web tools. And it’s nice to save a few bucks per month.
Tagged as:
nptech,
opensource,
tools,
web
As you can tell, I haven’t had much time to blog lately. Here are some great links I’ve come across that I thought were worth sharing:
Tagged as:
nptech,
opensource
I got to spend one day at CiviCRM developer camp this week. Unfortunately, it came after 4 long days of conferencing, after many exhausting days of work, so I wasn’t at my peak. But I learned a lot, and thought I’d share some of what I took away from that day.
First, the core team shared some of the new stuff coming out in version 2.3, and it is awe-some. One of the major reasons CiviCRM gets dinged as a CRM/DMS is that it doesn’t have reports. Well, that problem is about to go away with the release of CiviReport in 2.3. There will be a number of canned reports, and some really nice ways to create reports. Plus charts! Yay! There were some pie charts, and regular bar charts. I don’t have the new svn trunk of CiviCRM installed, otherwise, I’d show some screenshots, but it looked really nice. (I’ll be installing CiviCRM from svn in the next week, and I’ll probably blog more as 2.3 develops.)
There are some really nice usability improvements coming up in 2.3 as well – to make the basic contact pages much easier to navigate. And there is a new menu system, which will make things a lot easier. And, for Drupal users, some sweet Views 2 and CCK integration.
CiviEvent is getting waiting lists, registration approval, and user-modifiable registrations, and some other improvements.
The Alpha of 2.3 should be out by July.
I also learned about CiviCase, which is actually present in 2.2. 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. I’d love to find an organization, such as a small human services organization, in need of case management software, that could use CiviCase – it would be a great, and relatively inexpensive alternative to current offerings out there. And more organizations using CiviCRM for case management would help CiviCase get even better.
I also dug into some of the internals and code of CiviCRM, and feel better equipped to start contributing more than ideas and feedback to the project.
Tagged as:
civicrm,
CRM,
nptech,
opensource
I love Penguin Day. One of my favorite days of the year. Always comes right around NTC. This year, it’s before NTC, on Saturday, April 25. It’s a day dedicated to conversation and community around nonprofits and open source software. There’s some great stuff on the Agenda, like:
- Introduction to Free and Open Source Software
- Fundraising with all free software
- Free And Open Source Online Advocacy: Tools And Best Practices
- Making sense of Free and Open Source Content Management Systems
- Introduction to Blogging with Wordpress
- Intro and Advanced sessions on Joomla! and Drupal
- CiviCRM vs Salesforce.com: What Are the Differences?
- Mobile Volunteering: The ExtraOrdinaries Project
- Creative Commons And Open Content
- And many more…
You can register at Penguinday.org. Thanks to the generosity of Google, we’re delighted to grant fee waivers to anyone who needs one!
I look forward to seeing folks there.
Tagged as:
nptech,
ntc09,
opensource,
penguinday09
Blackbaud announced, just in time for AFP, their new product, called BlackbaudNow, in partnership with PayPal. It is a curious service. It is an extremely low-end, low-cost online website/online donation package from a vendor that spends most of its time on the very high-end of the scale.
It is simple. An organization can sign up for a free account, get a 5 page website, including a donation page, about page, etc. Editing a page is basically point and click – it highlights the part of the page you can edit it, and you edit it with a WYSIWYG editor. It’s decently AJAXy, but no, it’s not shiny – at least not my definition of shiny. You have a small number of templates to choose from (which, frankly, aren’t so great looking – I think they dedicated more graphic design time to their branding and pages than they did to the templates.) It’s free, although Blackbaud takes a percentage off the top. People can donate to your organization via Paypal only, and you can track donations in their very simple interface. You can export your donation history into a CSV file, and you can make your reports into PDFs. There are no APIs.
This was developed by the team that Blackbaud acquired when they acquired eTapestry. And, it’s designed to make migration to eTapestry easy – therein, I suspect, is the key. I’m betting this is a loss-leader – a product designed to get people in the door, and when they are chomping at the bit for more (which they will be in about 2 days after they set up their site,) there is a more costly (and profitable) product waiting right around the bend for them.
Small nonprofits – especially those with few or no staff, are always in a particularly challenging place when it comes to finding the best solution for a web presence and online donations. But I don’t think that a tool like this is going to serve very many nonprofits for very long, given its limitations. Of course, people like me, who make our living building websites, and helping facilitate the web presences of organizations, look askance at tools like this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But I have to admit that this seems to me a bit too much like a gateway drug – get them hooked on free, then move them slowly but surely to much more expensive systems. And in the end, won’t a modest investment (say, $2K or so) on the part of an organization in getting a better web presence going to serve them better in the long run? Heck, I think a Wordpress.com site attached to a Network for Good donation page will serve them better. At least they’ll have a lot more well-designed templates to choose from, and a real CMS engine.
Honestly, I’m underwhelmed by this service, and, in addition, I have a bone to pick with Blackbaud. The online help for BlackbaudNow is powered by the open source software MediaWiki. It is well hidden, but a somewhat savvy MediaWiki user will notice the telltale signs (the URLs are one giveaway.) Of course, proprietary software makers use open source software all the time, that’s not the problem. The problem I have is that they hid it. Why hide the fact that they are using an open source tool to build their online documentation? Not even a small mention on the About page. Did they do any modification to the code to make it work like they wanted to? Did they contribute anything back to the MediaWiki community? At the very least, they could have given credit where credit is due.
Tagged as:
blackbaud,
opensource,
paypal
It’s been a few days since I got back from Drupalcon, and I’ve had time to let all of the things that happened settle in. It was a great time, and I’m really happy I went.
We had a fabulous (and quite large) nptech/progressive exchange/community organizing BoF. There was a show-and-tell session for nonprofit websites (which I didn’t make it to). I went to some interesting sessions on Ubercart, Organic Groups, and a BoF on Drupal in churches (where I wondered about the theological spectrum, and guessed was populated mostly by evangelicals.) I met lots of great people, and saw old and new friends.
I think, also, I’ve completely drunk the Drupal koolaid. I’m psyched to be working with Drupal more intensely (I’ve got 4 Drupal projects going at the present moment.) There’s lots of new things to learn, and challenges to face, but I’m excited about digging in a lot deeper. I’m sure I’ll have more to say as time goes on. And I’m looking for good excuses to go to Paris for Drupalcon Paris!
There were lots of great talks, and the videos are up!
Tagged as:
CMS,
drupal,
drupalcon,
nptech,
opensource
At the end of day one, I figured I’d give a little report on how DrupalconDC is going for me. I’m having a good time, and learning a lot.
I went to three pretty intro talks (two of them were a bit too intro for me, but I got a few good tips) and one advanced panel.
- Themers Toolkit- I’ve only done a few themes, and modified a few, but I guess that was enough for this panel to be too beginner for me. But I did learn a few tricks I didn’t know, so it was useful. It was a good talk.
- Totally Rocking Your Development Environment – also covered mostly stuff I knew, but I did learn a few tips (and also learned a little from my next door neighbor. It was a great talk by an incredibly enthusiastic speaker. I can’t believe though, that she suggested using Makefiles for Drupal!
- Organic Groups – since I haven’t personally implemented OG, I didn’t know a lot about the innards, and how it really works. It was a great introduction, and I’m totally sold on it. He gave some sweet examples of it’s use (like teamsugar.com) which is amazing, and made me totally rethink using Elgg.
- Advanced Theming Techniques - A nice talk given by two folks from CivicActions, once of whom I’d worked with jointly on a client project. I learned a fair bit, and now have some good techniques to think about using as I start doing more serious theming (although, truthfully, I’d like to eventually be able to hand that off to folks who have a better visual sense than I.)
Dries‘ keynote was fun, and it was great to hear a bit about the history, and also the ideas about where Drupal is going. One thing he said in particular stood out: “Start thinking of the internet as one big machine.” The idea is that as barriers to the movement of data come down, doing things that were never possible before become a lot more possible. And there is some really cool stuff coming in the future like OAuth, Job Queues, RDFa output, XMPP, and Activity logs. Really neat.
I missed a couple of talks I’d wish I could have made, like the Drupal SEO talk, and Install Profiles. I was glad to see that there are a significant number of women here, and a number of women presenters, too.
I hung out with Drupalchix for lunch, and met new folks, saw some colleagues, and generally have been having a good time. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow.
Tagged as:
CMS,
drupal,
drupalcon,
nptech,
opensource
Mpower Open, the vendor who took their high-end CRM/DMS product, MPX, open source last year, has adopted a new name, Orange Leap. They have also released two new products, called Orange Leap and the Guru. The combination of Orange Leap and The Guru are a web-based CRM/DMS and reporting system aimed squarely at Salesforce.com and Convio Common Ground. The pricing of the hosted version is definitely competitive.
Orange Leap is possibly going for what is now often called the “Open Core” business model, although it’s not entirely clear. Their new products (as well as MPX) have “community editions” – mostly they lack services and support, which makes sense. But Orange Leap Community Edition also lacks “Domain specific fields and rules” and “Outbound Enhancements, Business Rules, and Processes”. It’s not actually clear what those are.
There is mention of a “community portal” but it’s not evident anywhere I can find. You need to request a demo of their open source tool, instead of the standard practice, which is creating an open, public demo for everyone to see and play with. On their brand new, quite lovely (and orange) website, as a developer, there is no place to find the software, interact with others, or find a way in. There is no community that is at all visible.
I like very much what these folks are trying so hard to do – provide high-quality, high-end open source applications for the CRM/DMS space. But I’m afraid they are going to be squeezed to a pulp between the behemoths of salesforce.com and Convio, on one hand, and the strong, vibrant open source community of CiviCRM on the other. Their only way out is to build an equally strong, vibrant community of developers and implementors – and that will be an uphill battle.
Tagged as:
CRM,
DMS,
opensource