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Using Technology to Organize: Tools to Build Websites, Databases, and Email… and more Jon Stahl [email protected] www.onenw.org
Using Technology to Organize: Tools to Build Websites, Databases, and Email… and more
Jon Stahl
www.onenw.org
What Kinds of Networks Are Most Important?
Networks of computers?
Or networks of people?
This is what a network looks like
Lay of the Land – Late 2005
•75% of US homes are now online
•Reading news is the #1 thing people do on the web (after email)
•Political campaigns “discovered” the Internet in 2004
•A new media ecology is emerging powered by “blogs”
New Tools, New Possibilities
• Lowering barriers to publishing and sharing information
Informal “tagging” instead of taxonomies
•More fluid boundaries between organizations – and tools
Lots more “pick ups” and “walk-ins”
• Pushing power to the edges of campaigns
Potentially scary; lots of potential
The Challenges
•Creative campaigns that mix old and new
•Knitting networks of people and organizations
•Tools that play well together
•Coping with information overload
•Treating communications tools as core capacity building work
Tools We Use
Website
DatabaseEmail Blasting
PloneDemocracy in ActionPayPalGiftTool
ODBSalesforce.com
WhatCountsDemocracy in ActionSympa
Websites
Increasing focus on:
•Easy to write
•Bite-size chunks of content, frequently updated
•Community/interactivity
plone.org
•ONE/Northwest’s website building tool of choice
•Emphasis on: Community Ease of use for non-techies Power and flexibility
Online Donations & Online Advocacy
There’s more to online fundraising than just “click here to donate”
Online advocacy is mainly a list-building tool
Tools we use: PayPal
• Simple, but surprisingly powerful… and CHEAP.
GiftTool.com• A bit more expensive, but very customizable
DemocracyInAction.org• Online donations and e-advocacy, plus
simple email blasting• Powerful and inexpensive, but a little rough
around the edges
•Still your main lifeline to your community – it goes to them
• Increasingly sophisticated publishing tools
•Website/email newsletter integration
Tools we use
• Sympa - ONE/Northwest list hosting Discussion lists (e.g.
[email protected]) Simple email newsletter lists
• no tracking, no personalization, no authoring tools
http://lists.onenw.org
•WhatCounts More powerful, flexible HTML email
newsletters Tracking, personalization, automatic
import of content from your website http://www.whatcounts.com
“Real Time” Tools
• Skype – www.skype.com Instant Messaging (aka “chat”) Voice-over-IP (aka “Internet Telephony”)
• Free & ultra-low cost voice calls to computers and to regular phones
$60m revenue, just bought by eBay for ~$4.7 billion (!)
• Gaim – gaim.sf.net A single program that connects to all major
Instant Messaging networks (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc.)
• FreeConference.com Free conference call bridging (you call in
long distance)
Databases
Still the source of tremendous pain
No easy answers (yet)
ODB: A Good Simple Starting Point
www.organizenow.net/odb
• ODB = Organizers’ Database
• Simple, easy to use, FREE
•Windows-only
• Basic donation and contact management
• No online tools integration
• Not good for multi-office organizations
A New Hope: Salesforce.com
• Heavy-duty web-based relationship management software
• For-profit company with an explicit social mission
Free 10-user licenses to nonprofits
• Strong user & developer community, both commercial and non-profit
• Strong connections to other tools• ONE/Northwest is just getting
started as an implementer, should be in full swing in early 2006.
Avoiding Information Overload
The challenge:
Getting what you need without being overwhelmed by what you don’t
Being able to find things you’ve seen before
Sharing information with others, without extra work
More Tools For Finding & Managing Information
•Del.icio.us Collaborative web bookmarks Helps you find and share
useful resources AND people http://del.icio.us (silly URL,
great tool)
Tools We Use To Manage Information Flow
•RSS Feed Readers, e.g. Bloglines
A great way to take in information and de-clutter your inbox
www.bloglines.com
•Google Desktop Instant, full-text searching of your
email, hard drive and network drives
http://desktop.google.com
More Tools To Find & Manage Information
•CommonTimes.org Collaborative news editing Strong group functions
•Google News Alerts Free, keyword-driven clipping
from 4500+ online news sources Can be delivered by email or by
RSS http://news.google.com/
Getting Things Done
•a process
• lots of ways to implement
•www.davidco.com
