Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 19, 2008

Here are a few: The blog at the Nonprofit Times, called “Don’t Tell the Donor&# has a very interesting entry on the flurry of benchmarking studies that came out recently. Time will tell. { Time will tell. { Time will tell. { It’s titled “ Benchmarking With a Warped Stick.&#

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 17, 2008

I think it will be a great time. I’m excited to be doing it again, in a new city, with some great partners, including Aspiration , of course, Joomla , PICnet , and the Chicago Technology Cooperative. And I hope to bring home a penguin!)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 18, 2007

June 18, 2007 OK, so I finally drank the Facebook coolaid – and although it took me a long time to get around to, I have now realized how many people in the nptech field have already been on facebook for a while. Relatively recently, I’d finally, after tons of invitations, joined invested time and energy into my LinkedIn profile.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 7, 2007

I have said many times that I wouldn’t Twitter. Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Why I’m twittering December 7, 2007 Yes, it’s hard to believe. I succumbed. I’ve critiqued Twitter and social networks in general.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 12, 2008

My suggestion: if you like gadgets, are addicted to being connected at all times, and you feel like you need reading glasses to read email or the web on the Blackberry screen, the iPhone might be a good bet, but I’d wait until software version 2.1 comes out.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 31, 2007

Traffic is flying at four plus times the speed, I can actually do remote shell sessions that aren’t painful. Unfortunately, it is the apparently increasingly dastardly Comcast, but it is so way much better than satellite by Hughesnet , that I can’t really find it in myself to complain.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 7, 2008

I’ve used more FTP clients in my time than I can even begin to remember, from command-line ftp, to WS-FTP, and lots and lots of others (I have this memory of a really old, clunky FTP client for Mac OS 7 or something that I was using a lot, when all filesharing was via FTP.) I use it all the time, and I really like it.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 26, 2008

New open source players entering the market (more on them soon), high satisfaction for other open source tools, and SaaS vendors throwing the doors open so that nonprofits can integrate their systems well (I’m psyched to hear about all the new connectors, mashups and apps happening all the time.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 20, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology News from NTC ‘08 March 20, 2008 I’ve been having a great time here at NTC – running into lots of folks I’m happy to see again, and meet, learning about new things, being involved.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 11, 2008

What you should do Make an assessment – will using this online tool really save money or time, or facilitate collaboration in ways that is not possible with local apps? Cloud for Good | Web-Based Computing Best Practices for Non-Profit Organizations 10.04.09 at 5:17 am TechSoup Blog 09.16.09

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 24, 2008

I’ve got several posts on tap about specific aspects of the conference, or specific products and such that I’d come across during my time at NTC last week, so stick around. And I’m already looking forward to NTC in San Francisco in 2009! { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Holly 03.24.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

I’ll leave the complaining about Croatian food and other things to my personal blog, when I get the time. The event itself has been fab. As one of those monolingual American types, I’m learning a huge amount about what it takes to create open content in different languages.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 29, 2008

It’s because, basically, I am about as busy as I’ve been in a very long time. I’m spending about 1/2 of my time being Coordinator of NOSI. It feels quite good, actually. And I have lots of thoughts about what I’m doing. As you’ve probably seen, we’ve been pretty busy lately. I love this work.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 6, 2007

The course is a 12 week course, starting on November 19th (with time off for the holidaze.) That was one of the big reasons I had been looking for good web conferencing a while back (I’m still looking…) I’m starting my foray into this territory by giving a free course in the database management system, PostgreSQL.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

It would not be as cost-effective (and thus, not produce as much profit) if these SaaS developers had to pay license fees for the software they use (besides the fact that these are the most stable and robust platforms to build upon.) It’s my understanding that none of the major non-profit SaaS players use open source tools.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 17, 2008

This ups the ante major league for Blackbaud, for sure, as well as other long time desktop donor database providers. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding – we’ll find out over time how this app works, and whether organizations like it. And it means an interesting dance for those in the nonprofit salesforce community.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 17, 2008

You don’t have to code to do what should be basic tasks using the tool (for instance, this eliminates a good time tracking program, which at some point I might blog about, but that you have to learn scheme[1] to get customized reports with any complexity. )

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

As a full-time user of both Firefox and Thunderbird, I’m really enjoying the benefits of these open platforms, and the immense creativity of people who create add-ons. And it’s all free! 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

JUNE 11, 2007

How do you get providers to invest time and energy in what is really a marginally profitable business? There are many challenges – how do you teach self-reflection and self-evaluation? How do you teach the ins and outs of the nonprofit sector?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 5, 2008

They don’t have the money, time, or culture for that kind of thing. There are times when I couldn’t tell you the last time I sent a tweet, and there are other days when I tweet quite actively. Plus I hope to be that expert, or close to it, when the time does come!) ;) 4 Beth Kanter 08.10.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology OpenOffice.org to get a boost September 13, 2007 I’ve been spending a lot of time with OpenOffice.org lately. I’ve not owned MS Office in a very long time. for at least 4 years.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 19, 2007

I’ve been doing this work for more than 10 years now, full time for about seven of those years. It’s been an important part of my life for all of this time. For right now, I’m the part-time coordinator of NOSI. I decided several weeks ago, for a variety of reasons, to retire my independent consultant hat.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 30, 2007

Not because I don’t want my blog to be better, it’s just that I don’t have the time right now. I figured it was a good time to think about and articulate mine. But, I have been following Michele Martin’s work on The Bamboo Project Blog with some interest. One of them, I’ll do now.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 1, 2007

My curmugeonly thoughts fall into three basic categories of sucks: time suck, content suck, privacy suck. Time suck: Social networks are a time suck. Content suck: And why do the for-profit social networks exist, when you really get down to it? They own my profile, and whatever time I spend adding content.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology New tools February 5, 2008 Last week, I spent too much time watching demos from DEMO , which is this twice yearly event that showcases the most bleeding edge internet technology.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 20, 2007

I wish all a holiday season full of fun, quality time with family (chosen or otherwise), and joy. { I wish all a holiday season full of fun, quality time with family (chosen or otherwise), and joy. { I wish all a holiday season full of fun, quality time with family (chosen or otherwise), and joy. { Two whole pageviews.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 9, 2008

It took me a couple of frustrating hours or so to configure samba (editing the samba.conf file and testing) so that I could share my home directory, with music and video, with my other computers, and share my printer. Plugged it in, and it just worked. Of course with my mac, I opened up the system preferences, checked a button, and, voila!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 27, 2008

I myself wrote a custom CMS a long time ago that would be considered crap now, so I don’t blame them for that, but the charges???) 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. OK, enough of that.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 19, 2007

Maybe it’s time for me to go out and find some blue and yellow clothes. Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention has some great examples (that I’ll be using really soon!) for writing one-page fact sheets. Marketing Deviant has an interesting post about having a color dress code for your business. at 10:04 pm Donor Power Blog 11.21.07

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 21, 2007

He thinks that time-based billing is bad. On one hand, he feels that consultants should base their fees on the value they bring to the consulting relationship, not the time spent. His examples are things like saving millions by reducing employee turnover, increasing profits by streamlining processes, etc. 2 Alan Weiss 10.23.07

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 24, 2007

I’m not going to embark on the 31 days to a better blog challenge , it’s a bit too much for me to plunge into, but I will be doing bits and pieces of it over time, as well as delving deeply into search engine optimization (SEO), which is a topic that I have pretty much only watched from a distance for far too long.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 10, 2008

In the last few months, I was involved in helping three organizations choose vendors for varied technology projects, and in the course of that time, I talked with almost a dozen technology vendors of one type or another. 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

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

It’s an interesting time, and there is a good question – is this something nonprofits should jump on? Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Facebook Ad Platform November 13, 2007 It always takes me a bit to digest new Web 2.0

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 10, 2008

I’d had bits and pieces of this in varied places, and in my head, but it was a good time to get it all down. Glad you like it. I think, actually, all technology consultants, whether they do what I do, or hack code, should do this exercise.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 20, 2007

How much time generally passes between major or minor releases? Luckily, most web project have online demos, which will give you a feeling for the software without having to spend too much time configuring a server or webhost to use the software. How busy is it? How easily or quickly does it seem that questions get answered?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

But even if it doesn’t, at least the next time a computer dies, I’ll have a backup. { The Mac Mini I’d been planning to get for a while just got ordered, next day shipping. It might even arrive before the laptop gets out of the shop. 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Dustin J. Mitchell 02.20.07

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 10, 2008

It is made up of people who are techically-oriented, largely affluent, and largely spend inordinate amounts of time in contact with electronic devices. Should they spend a bit of time tying their RSS feed (if they have one) to a twitter account? at 10:40 am Twitter and Non-Profits-Are Baby Boomers Involved?

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