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Web 2.0 Collaboration

In Web 2.0 Collaboration, David Geilhufe does some of his best work to date on the topic of the framework for cooperative ventures created by emerging web services infrastructures. I was particularly pleased by his challenge to Compumentor and VolunteerMatch to open up their databases to outside development. I made several similar pleas a few years back, including asking tech grantmakers to focus on funding networks of innovation, rather than single providers. I didn't get much traction on that, to say the least. With new examples of innovation happening on top of the Google Maps APIs and well framed arguments such as David's, maybe now we can get somewhere. Posted: 8/22/05; 12:46:20 PM #

The IT Revolution & NP Organizations in Los Angeles

The Center for Nonprofit Management's recent report on The IT Revolution & NP Organizations in Los Angeles (41 page PDF) has much encouraging news about many nonprofits having gotten to a solid place around basic ICT systems and services. The reports most interesting implications include: Sporadic IT planning can lead to IT chaos. Budget size does not affect ICT usage so much as the kinds of challenges faced by the organization. And finally, funders should reconsider restrictions on grants that prevent spending on IT infrastructure. Posted: 8/22/05; 12:37:38 PM #

Five Reasons Social Networking Doesn't Work

As we witness the decline of sites like Friendster and the changing of sites like Linked In into classified ad servers, it's smart to ask what happened to all the hype about "social networking". In Five Reasons Social Networking Doesn't Work, Molly Wood does just that. Stating the desperately needed obvious, she says: (1) There's nothing to do there. (2) It takes too much time. (3) Traffic alone isn't enough. (4) Strangers kind of suck (or, put nicely, the social hierarchy is really not that attractive). (5) We already have the Internet. That last one is my favorite and is also one of the reasons why central bookmarking systems like del.icio.us will eventually have to give way to decentralized alternatives. Posted: 8/22/05; 12:26:33 PM #

15 Tips for Improved Subject Lines

The Subject line in a piece of email is second in importance only to the From line in terms of its impact on whether someone opens your email. Until just recently, Nonprofit Online News, for all its best practices, had terrible subject lines in its email versions. This was a source of some embarrassment to me when I would lecture on the subject and we finally changed our habits this year. If you publish an email newsletter or calls to action to your stakeholders, you might be interested in these 15 Tips for Improved Subject Lines from the folks at Email Labs. Posted: 8/22/05; 12:21:00 PM #

Secret and Enormous Costs of Fundraising

Aron Goldman hosts the Policy Portal at Social Edge. Yesterday, he posted some commentary about the Secret and Enormous Costs of Fundraising in which he takes foundations to task for the overhead that they impose on grantseekers, but which they are typically unwilling to fund. Giving away money costs money, for sure, but I share the author's frustration with how much of that cost has been put onto nonprofits. Posted: 8/22/05; 12:07:09 PM #

NGO-In-A-Box

I have heard the phrase such and such "in-a-box" too many times to think of it as anything more than a cliche, but of course we live in the era of government by cliche, so I suppose I had better get used to it. Anyway, I have to say that Tactical Tech's NGO-in-a-box is a step in the right direction when it comes to the matter of ICT infrastructure in developing countries. It goes beyond the "shovel-ware" concept of so many collections of free software on CDs by choosing the right mix of software (including NGO specific tools) and most importantly, including documents to help with usage scenarios. But toolkits like this won't really live up to their label until they come with installation and setup wizards that allow an NGO to go through a comprehensive series of organizational questions, the answers to which culminate in a functioning nonprofit ICT system. Posted: 8/22/05; 11:56:51 AM #