Archive for the ‘general interest’ Category
Friday, February 19th, 2010
This is basically the same as my comment on my Idealware post about Sprout Builder shutting down.
Something of an update via Facebook fan pages, which I suppose is a sign of the times.
First, in the group Jeff Wassermen started and mentions in the comments on my first post and Johanna mentions on Idealware “Spurned Sproutbuilders Unite!” Carnet did indeed say that all existing Sprout subscribers that are members of the group can get the half price discount ($1500 a year) by emailing info@sproutinc.com with subject line “early adopter discount” . You’ll need to give the email address you used for your Sprout account , if different your paypal email so they can send you a manual invoice. This is because you will need to pay the for the full year up front and they are discontinuing Pay Pal billing.
Also on Beth Kanter’s Facebook fan page there is a reply to Jon Dunn’s post about Sprout’s discontinuation from Michelle Wohl at Sprout saying that they “..are working with existing Sprout non-profit clients on pricing. Please email support@sproutinc.com for info. ” And Beth’s indication that it will be on an individual basis.
The company has expressed their concern for nonprofits and intentions to do all they can to support them in the past, so its likely they will offer some sort of discount for 5013c organizations.
In any case, all nonprofits using Sprout would be wise to contact them soon and see what can be done for your organization.
Monday, February 15th, 2010
The do-it-yourself widget maker so many nonprofits grew to know and love, Sprout Builder, announced today that they are shutting down all subscription service to concentrate on their enterprise ($3000 a year +) offerings. This is sad news for nonprofits using the service and if you are one of them you’ll want to read the Sprout FAQ right away. You’ll have a little lead time to find a solution though - until the end of March to be precise.
Just about a year ago the service went from free to fee and although there are probably more alternatives now, my post about what else is out there may come in handy again.
[Update: I posted more on this topic at Idealware's blog and am hoping that post becomes a place for sharing alternatives and what's to do for those losing their Sprouts - please check it out and contribute your solutions and ideas]
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
As pretty much everyone in the world knows now, Haiti suffered a horrible earthquake on Tuesday January 12, 2010. Most people also already know that even before this terrible disaster the country was stricken with a level of poverty that is almost unimaginable to those of us in North America. So I really can’t imagine the situation there now and the sheer scale and horror of it threatens to overwhelm me at this point.
Being a part of the amazing non profit technology community has let me know that many, many people jumped into action immediately and are using every tool they know of to help in fast, meaningful and creative ways. One of the things that brings me hope for our world is the way in which we are using technology to make even small contributions count ( Red Cross raised $3million in one day via $10 text message donations) and its really inspiring to see it in action, even if the reason its needed is so awful.
Below are links to clients that work in Haiti that need your support to respond to this latest disaster and some from friends and colleagues that are rushing to aid the people of Haiti as well. Please consider making a donation - which really is the best way to help.
Education Partnership for Children of Conflict organizations and updates
The International Rescue Committee
The Jewish Federations of North America (formerly UJC) Haiti Relief Fund
Luke Montgomery, a colleague I met at the Web of Change conference in 2007 who used the internet to bring people together to build an orphanage for HIV children is in immediate need since their first orphanage was directly affected - please help him if you can.
We Can Build an Orphanage special donation page
[UPDATE: Luke and his partner are now doing even more in Haiti as the Cause Commandos:
http://causecommandos.com/ and you can learn more about the orphanage and how to help on its main site: http://www.wecanbuildanorphanageblog.com/ ]
Other great organizations that my friends and colleagues are involved with
Doctors without Borders
Mercy Corps
U.S. Fund for UNICEF
YELE
and of course The Red Cross
Finding People Takes an Internet
After Hurricane Katrina I was part of a crowd sourced effort to connect people lost and found in the emergency called Katrina People Finder - it was an amazing international effort that resulted in standardization of disaster contact records which has been adopted and evolved over the years. So I am particularly interested to see the great work being done now for those looking to help people find each other. You can see this work in the links below and find help if you are trying to locate someone that was in Haiti.
http://www.haitianquake.com/ - to locate people
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/ - crowd sourced crisis data
http://www.sahana.lk/ - open source disaster management system
PFIF format http://zesty.ca/pfif/ - evolution of the data standard
UPDATE: Google engineers have joined the effort and are scraping existing data, importing to PFIF and forming a central hub here: http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/
Looking for Animal Organizations
I am also actively looking for animal welfare organizations to support in the country, those having an established presence are most effective since they know the country and don’t face the cost of deploying from a remote location. Please contact me if you know of good groups on the ground in Haiti that are helping rescue companion animals and livestock. Mostly its too soon for them to act since finding and helping the human victims is still an urgent top priority in the country.
One smart organization to follow about animals is Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and I will be checking to see what they are doing regularly. They are updating their efforts on their rapid response page.
Even if you can’t afford to give money, please voice your support for these efforts to your friends and family and online.
Update:
The Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH), a new coalition of dedicated animal welfare organizations has been formed to help the animals of Haiti. Best Friends is participating and its led by World Society for the Protection of Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare . Other animal welfare groups part of the coalition includes the ASPCA, American Humane Association, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and Humane Society International (HSI). If you love animals and want to help please donate what you can to one of the coalition organizations.
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Little Things Can Mean A Lot: 404 Pages
(originally posted at idealware.org/blog)
Easily Overlooked Opportunities to Polish your Brand Online
You’ve probably heard the adage that your brand isn’t just your logo or tagline, its every experience people have with your organization. And its true that having a consistent message in everything you do, from the words your staff uses answer the phone to exactly matching your colors on print materials, does pay off in terms of presenting your organization as professional and clear about your mission.
I have been thinking lately about small ways you can extend your organization’s brand and personality online that are often overlooked. As always I get the most excited about those that are fairly inexpensive, not too difficult to execute and that provide a lot of bang for your buck. I’ve decided to do a small series of these over the next few weeks. Here’s the first - a friendly 404 can say a lot about how much you care about your web site visitors.
404 pages
When visitors can’t find what they are looking for on your site it can put them off, even though it might be in no way your fault. Its not just good usability to customize your “page not found” page it’s also an opportunity to reinforce your messaging and brand.
An Error 404 page is what your web server will display when the URL in the browser can’t be found. Instead of the boring or unfriendly default “Not Found The requested URL /oops was not found on this server. This document cannot be retrieved” you can help your visitors find what they are looking for on your site.
First you’ll need to find out how you access that page (this might be via the hosting company control panel or in your content management system) and then add helpful tips to reorient the user and provide paths to your most popular, important or interesting content. Not only is this more friendly but its a good opportunity to reinforce your messages for the visitor and show them what’s available.
What should your 404 include?
A friendly message and a search form are good ideas, as is a list of links to major site sections or popular content. At minimum you want to be sure that your site navigation is available on this page or a link to the site home page to help retain and orient visitors on your site.
And if you can add your sitemap, it will help your visitors find what they are looking for and show off all the great stuff on your site. Ideally you would also include a link to email the webmaster or a form to submit broken links in case it’s a bad link on your site that landed them on this page.
Check out how some organizations do this:
Whether you go simple with just a nice message and link back home, or get really fancy and try to guess what they were looking for, its a vast improvement over the default error page that can send the wrong message about your organization.
In my opinion, a short statement and bulleted list is most helpful to guide users to their intended information and its best to avoid being too cutesy or clever on these pages. Visitors are already frustrated so reminding them they may have made a mistake or forcing them to read a lot of text probably isn’t going to improve their mood or associations with your organization.
More tips and ideas on good 404’s
And some specifics for some common open source content management systems
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
The Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco at the end of April was really great this year. The opening speaker Clay Shirkey (author, Here Comes Everybody) was fantastic and amazingly quotable. I liked that he was able to project both a 30,000 ft view of the social media landscape and drive home some very practical and common sense lessons that nonprofits can use right away.
While I was there I took the opportunity to interview fellow bloggers for the Idealware blog and am posting their thoughts on that site.
Here are the first two Get to know the Idealware Blogger interviews:
Part 1: Steve Backman
Part 2: Laura Quinn
Look for the next in the series coming soon. I had the best time getting to chat with these super smart people and look forward to continuing the converstations post NTC. Really it was, as always, all of the brilliant dedicated people that make the conference a yearly tradition and I am already looking forward to Atlanta next year.
Friday, April 24th, 2009
Its been a busy week and about to get busier. Right now I am getting ready to head to the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco and I am really looking forward to meeting some longtime and new online friends while I am there. I’ll be interviewing my fellow Idealware bloggers too and posting the results on the Idealware blog soon.
Also this week we launched the Bailout Watch Web site - a group project by six leading organizations in government transparency. If you have been wondering where all that TARP money went or need some help understanding the who, what and where of the bailout, check out the Bailout Watch site. Find out more in our portfolio.
And one more thing… NRDC asked us to translate their Eat Local campaign design to this cute little widget that’s all kinds of handy for eating local and eating well. Just pick your location and the time of year and you’ll see what’s available fresh in your neighborhood. This was another fun one and I learned a lot working with Sean Fremouw of Free Flow Data about iWidgets, which allows for the widget’s functionality and ability to be shared on all the popular social network sites and more.
Its really fantastic to get to work on projects where I learn more about the issue and that I know I will use them myself.
Monday, April 20th, 2009
How to Share PowerPoint Presentations Online
(originally posted at idealware.org/blog)
Recently a client came to me with a question about how best to offer PowerPoint presentations from previous conferences online. I thought I would share the notes I gave them here for others that might want to see the pros and cons of the various options.
In my client’s case it was important that viewers not be able to edit the original file, so we took additional steps needed to protect the file. I’ll include a basic how-to or just linking to the original file as well as a couple of links for the other options.
Upload the PPT (or PPS) to your web server and provide a download link
This is probably the easiest option if your content management system allows .ppt or .pps files to be uploaded through its media management system. Even if you need to manually upload the file via FTP and link it on a web page the process is not too complicated.
Since the Web doesn’t handle big files (over 10 mgs) as well as our hard drives do, reducing the file size by optimizing the presentation is a good idea.
In PowerPoint you can also save your file as a “PowerPoint Show” which always opens in slide show view so viewers don’t have access to edit your material. Another way to prevent changes is to assign a password for modifications.
PowerPoint 2003 - Tools>Options>Security
PowerPoint 2007 - Save As>Tools>General Options
Pros:
- No conversion necessary beyond save as in PowerPoint itself/ No need to learn new software
- Ability to share original file with collaborators if desired
- You host and maintain control of your files.
Cons:
- Can result in large files to upload and download - so describe file size for visitors when offering presentations for download
- Only viewable with software that reads .ppt and .pps files
Resources:
- How to trim down the size of your PowerPoint presentation
- Lock PowerPoint File From Being Edited
- List of free Powerpoint viewer programs
Convert to PDF
PDF or Portable Document Files have become something of a de facto standard for online file links. The software to view these files is available on most operating systems or as a free download from Adobe, so its a safe bet that anyone and everyone will be able to see your material once its converted to this file type.
You can do this by choosing the Save As PDF option from within PowerPoint and through the options in the Print menu on most systems. You’ll want to optimize the file size if you have access to a PDF editing program since the resulting file might even larger than the original.
Pros:
- Standard file format that will appear the same to users on all platforms
- Embeds fonts and images and can be optimized to reduce file size.
- Not editable by the end viewer
Cons:
- Can mangle presentation formatting
- Individual slides are difficult to reference or find
- Doesn’t retain transitions and animations.
- Browsers deal with PDF files differently and user experience can be poor and unpredictable
Resources:
- How to Save PowerPoint as PDF
- Free PowerPoint to PDF converter (haven’t used)
- Optimize PDF files
Use an online service for slide sharing
There are several good online services for sharing (and even creating) slide-based presentations. Slideshare.net is one of the first and most mature and like Zoho and the others allows you to import/upload your PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentations to be converted to their own sharing format. The usual Software as a Service caveats apply here as with any other “free” service on the web.
Pros:
- Enables remote presentations easily since it is browser based
- Hosts the files so you don’t have to use your own server or bandwidth serving large files.
- Most include version and organization options that can help you keep track of presentations if you have a lot of them.
Cons:
- Not all features of the original PowerPoint may be available in the online service so read through their conversion information carefully if you have media or animations that are crucial to your presentation.
- Currently free but could require advertising or fees in the future and your materials are hosted on their servers so losing access to them is always a possiblity.
- May not allow downloads for presentation files.
Resources:
- SlideShare.net
- Zoho Show
- Online Slideshows: Not So Scary
There are additional options if you are interested in modifying the final presentation and distributing it as a movie, flash presentation or web pages. Microsoft provides some basic tools for doing this right in the program itself and there are third party tools that yield even more robust final products.
Whichever method you choose you might also want to check out the resources at Social Source Commons for some added alternatives and file compression tools.
I hope the information here will make it fairly painless to share and reuse your presentation content for your web audience and get more mileage out of the ideas and effort that went into its original purpose. If you have recommendations on software or other sharing methods, please leave them in the comments below.
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
More Fun with Open Source Content Management
(originally posted at idealware.org/blog)
I’m really thrilled that the Idealware report comparing 4 top-notch open source content management systems is now available. I think it will prove invaluable to nonprofits of all shapes and sizes for a long time to come and know I will be recommended reading for many friends and potential and future clients.
Even if you have already seen the CMS Showdown and the competition sites implemented on WordPress, Drupal and Joomla now that the report is out they are worth another look.
If you didn’t make it to SXSW conference or haven’t heard about this brilliant project - here is an excerpt from the site:
Originally presented at South By Southwest Interactive in March, 2009, the Ultimate Showdown of Content Management System Destiny is an “Iron Chef”-style competition pitting three teams of all-star Web developers from the Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress communities against each other to develop the same Web site in each of their chosen open source content management platforms.
In addition to a fascinating look behind the scenes at each teams decision-making process, there are lots of productive insights to be gained by looking at the finished products of their labors. Many of the key points in the Idealware report are evident on the demo sites and by reading the team notes.
Despite (or maybe because of) the 100 hour total development time limit, each site demonstrates its system’s strengths and weakness fairly accurately or I should say in keeping with my own experiences of them. Not all of them managed to accomplish all the requirements, which points out what takes more time or work to implement for that particular system.
One thing that can be confusing is that the specifications for the site required that most of the content be available only to authenticated users. The sites for Drupal and Joomla, who were able to achieve this, seem a bit bare, especially Drupal where they didn’t create any publicly viewable items in some areas. So you can’t access the galleries, blogs or member listings and its a pity that there doesn’t seem to be a demo user/password available anywhere to see the full sites. If anyone knows of one, I would love to take a look.
Also, sadly there was no invitation for a Plone team this time around, but if you want to see it included next time I’d suggest you contact the organizers.
Check out the CMS Showdown as a handy companion piece to the Idealware CMS report for a real world apples to apples demonstration (sort of) of how each system looks at some familiar features. And read the team notes on cmsshowdown.com for some helpful hints and tricks the they used on the sites.
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
I tried out a new survey creation tool called Survs.com recently and so far I think its pretty slick. The user interface has all the AJAX anyone could want and although a couple of tasks seemed slightly circuitous mostly it was just fun to use. Would love to get some more feedback about what others think and how it worked out to see if it holds up under real world usage.
Since its new, beta and they are trying to get the word our they gave me a set of invites and I wanted to pass them along in hopes of hearing back from anyone that finds them useful.
These invites are available to the first ten people that use the code FRFUYMXV in the following link:
http://www.survs.com/signup
If you take it for a test run, let me know how it goes in the comments . Thanks!
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Great Resources on Vendor Websites
(originally posted at idealware.org/blog)
One of the great things about working in the nonprofit sector is the spirit of sharing and helping one another succeed that I continue to find among organizations and consultants for online technologies. Many resources on how to choose technology and how to use it wisely are available from great nonprofit and consulting companies. But the hungry mind wants more so, although it might be obvious, I wanted to share another great way to find metrics, best practices and how to guides - technology vendors resource sections.
Over the years I have found that many vendors of both nonprofit and for profit technology and services offer a wealth of high quality information on their sites that cover far more than just their own products. I see it as enlightened self-interest, since successful customers are happy customers and the basics apply no matter what platform you are using for your web site, fundraising or bulk email.
Here are just few that I have found worth checking in on regularly, but be sure to check for a resources section on your own vendor’s websites.
Email Vendors
http://mailchimp.com/resources/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/
http://www.emaillabs.com/best_practices/ (Lyris)
Websites and Fundraising
http://www.wildapricot.com/resources.aspx
http://www.convio.com/resources/
and some older but still useful items at Kintera/Blackbaud
Network for Good has a whole site about fundraising:
http://www.fundraising123.org/
But wait there’s more!
Don’t forget that most of the time resources for profit companies are equally useful in the nonprofit sector or can be with a little adaptation. Check out sites offering general best practices like Marketing Sherpa and Copyblogger. You can find good advice and information that applies equally to any type of communications strategy.
Please share your own favorite vendor or for profit resources in the comments and we can all learn a little more.
