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I Never Want to Hear the Word 'Enterprise' Again
By Michael C. Gilbert, June 1998
From Sunday, June 21 through Thursday, June 25, I attended the Web98 Design and Development Conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco. I knew that the conference, at nearly $1800 for a full registration, was priced for corporate customers, not nonprofits. My goal was to get as much out of the conference as possible and try to engineer a little "technology transfer" back to the nonprofit community.
It was a partial success: I learned some things from the Cool Site in Day Contest and from talking to exhibitors. Resources related to many of the workshops are available online. I've concluded that we'll have to be doing more for ourselves.
Cool Site in a Day Contest:
When I asked the contest coordinator, who works for Web Review [ http://www.webreview.com ], what the criteria were for the judging of the entries, she told me that it was just a matter of how well the site met the needs of the organization. If any of you are associated with the nonprofits whose sites were revised, I would love to learn more about how you articulated those needs.
I do wonder about the title of the contest, particularly about the use of the word "cool". The title reflects a powerful culture that influences how a group of otherwise unrelated web professionals would design a web site. How else would you explain that the proposed Hospitality House front page is a contentless entry page?
Nonprofits and Technology Companies:
The Exhibit Hall was a cacaphony of color and carnival acts, starting at the front with GoLive's watermelon and peach colored stage. As assistants handed out watermelon and peach jelly beans, the presentor tossed t-shirts to the crowd whenever they chanted the product name.
Unsportingly, I wasn't willing to be a screaming advertisement for a product in exchange for the priviledge of wearing a t-shirt which would in turn enable me to become a walking advertisement for a product. However, I did overhear one conference attendee explain how excited she was to have gotten four t-shirts and how this made it a good conference.
"Blah blah ... enterprise ... blah blah ... solution ... blah blah ... deployment ... blah blah ... "
The first day of the conference, I talked to some of the larger exhibitors. I told them I was with Nonprofit Online News and that my story angle was how nonprofits might be using their software or services. I asked them to tell me about some of their nonprofit customers. The two best answers I got were: "I'll get back to you with that information." (They didn't.) "Is the American Medical Association a nonprofit?" The typical reponse was a blank, uncomprehending stare. One company representative was so engrossed in his worldview that he made a big point of explaining that his company was in business to make a profit. I told him that nonprofits buy lots of things from for profit companies, but I don't think I got through.
My friends and colleagues, we are invisible to these folks.
Workshops and Related Resources:
There were a lot of workshops. My reviews of the ones I attended would be of little use to most of you, since you're not likely to attend one of these. Instead, I will list those workshops for which I could find links to associated resources.
The workshops are organized by the six categories in which they were presented at the conference itself: Strategy, Usability, Information Design, Visual Design, Programming, and Backend. The links lead to a variety of resources including workshop outlines, Powerpoint presentations, examples used in the workshops, and other material.
There is some very good stuff here.
Strategy:
Usability:
Information Design:
Visual Design:
Programming:
Backend:
Doing It for Ourselves
The fundraising software companies have been doing it for a while, but there are very few technology companies for whom nonprofits are more than an afterthought or a niche market. We need more than repackaged software or services that are influenced mostly by the needs of for profit businesses.
With that in mind, I want to praise Philanthropy Journal [ http://www.pj.org ] for its upcoming series of technology conferences for nonprofits, and Desktop Assistance [ http://www.desktop.org ] for eBase, the nonprofit contact database to be release this year. They are both addressing important needs.
If you know of technological products or services which are truly focused on nonprofit organizations and which I ought to know about, please write to me.
If you found this article interesting or helpful,
please consider making a donation to Nonprofit Online News.
It will probably feel good!
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