White Paper - Portalfuze Non-Profits/Associations

8/14/2019 White Paper - Portalfuze Non-Profits/Associations

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Enterprise Social Media

and Non-Profits/Associations


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Introduction

Web 2.0 and social-media technologies have drasticallyimpacted the way people interact on the Internet, both witheach other and with the data in which they have an interest.With this paradigm shift in interaction, government agencies,corporations, associations, and other enterprise-focused groups arelooking at these technologies more than ever to add collaborativefunctionalities to existing Web platforms.

All effective social media solutions enable users to establish anidentity and communicate with other users through numerouschannels within a collaborative platform. Social media engages theaudience and presents multiple simple opportunities for contribution.

Social Media: What Is It?

Ask ten different people about their definition of social media, andyoull get 20 totally different answers if not more. At Portalfuze,we think of social media as tools that enable enterprises to:

Engage the user by facilitating two-way and multi-wayconversations; as opposed to the one-way conversation fromthe enterprise to the user, seen in typical brochure Web

applications Promote collaboration and secure information exchangebetween and among users

Provide new and novel ways for the organization,distribution, and collection of feedback of traditional data andinformation

Encourage an architecture of participation that relies oncontributions from both users and site moderators

Mesh and interact easily with other new and emerging Web-based technologies, especially those focused on userinteraction and media distribution

Create participation points for the audience to augmentexisting information

Why do people collaborate? Whether online or in person, peoplework together to share information, answer questions and solveproblems faster and (usually) better than by working alone. In thecontext of enterprise social media, collaboration is generallyaccomplished by comment posting, forums, document sharing andother simple means.

With multi-way collaboration among clients and the enterprise,


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participation is not only extended, the sponsoring enterprisebecomes an even-more entrenched part of the client's daily life. Thiscan lead to additional sales or referrals, increased sign-ups to a non-profit and/or association, and so on.

Benefits of Social Media for Non-Profits/Associations

Associations and non-profits are already putting their proverbial toein the water, when it comes to social media. A recent report from theAngerosa Research Foundation showed that 27% of more than 300associations surveyed said they have set up their own socialnetwork, typically by using software they own or license.

The best news of all is that 21% of respondents said they generatedrevenue from social media, mainly through sponsorships.

Enterprise-strength social media platforms and networks canprovide a significant tool to assist in effective communication withinan association/non-profit, as well as among geographically distantmembers or chapters. The benefits of such platforms focus oncreating new and informal, but traceable, methods ofcommunication. Most important, though, is that thesecommunication channels should be positioned to facilitate one or

more specific functionalities for the end user. Some examples offunctional applications of social technologies includes:

1. Knowledge-management modules, which enable users in acollaborative environment to build out teams by searching forother users with specific technical expertise.

2. Sourcing modules, which allow for quick creation,dissemination, and collection of RFPs for various goods andservices.

3. Collaborative modules, which let multi-functional projectteams work together on a product with a shared end-goal.

4. Broadcast modules, which allow for quick distribution ofcontent and critical updates within a network and via e-mail.

5. Publishing modules, which enable the posting and mining ofvarious content types to identify synergies among membersof a diverse network population.

Associations and non-profits implementing a social-media strategythat goes beyond a simple blog post or a Facebook/LinkedIn groupcan see numerous benefits. First, we need to see what makesenterprise-level social media different and better than these"good-but-basic" first steps.


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Simply put, association/non-profit social media is about informationand control. Its all about providing tools, technologies andinformation that can be created, accessed and used by variousapproved people employees/staff, board members, members,media, non-members, subject-matter experts, etc. Specific tools atthe site can include blogs, microblogs, documents, videos, podcasts,forums, discussions, and ratings/reviews of content.

The "control" comes from the ownership or licensing of tools by theassociation or non-profit. When depending on third parties for freetechnologies like blogging and social-networking platforms, theorganization does not necessarily own those tools, host them ontheir own servers, have easy access to their information, and so on.

In fact, your organization can even lose total control over your data,when using those free services. Facebook, for example, at onepoint threatened to keep everything that was uploaded to it even ifa member quit. Does your association or non-profit want to giveaway that kind of control over your data?

Enterprise-strength implies not only the ownership or licensing oftools and data by the enterprise in this case, the association ornon-profit but the customization of these tools to create aproductive experience as well.

What specifically can these tools bring your association or non-profit, and how can they help your goals? Examples include:

Member EngagementInvolve your membership with your organization and itsgoals, by giving them an online home with the tools theyneed to communicate with one another, and with you. Theuse of social-media tools also promotes member retentionand renewals.

Member Mobilization

Need a good way to bring your members together to performa specific action, like sign a petition, call a Congressperson,send in funds, and so on? An active membership thatsengaged with your non-profit/association via a social networkis the fastest and easiest way to do it. Send to yourmembers an e-mail blast that directs them to your call-for-action on a page in the platform that can also containdiscussions, documents, polls, rankings, etc.


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Strengthen Bonds Between MembersBy enabling active collaboration and cooperation amongyour members, the bonding that already occurs as a result ofbeing a part of an association or movement is greatlyincreased. In using the social-media tools your organizationprovides, your members will think better of you as a result ofa halo effect, and even potentially recommend you to theirassociates or friends. Members can also actively promotethemselves to one another, and even evangelize about yourorganization to other members within the network.

Provocative DiscussionsSeed hot discussion topics within groups and/or messageboards, and watch the conversation take off. Your members

will supply their own discussions within your organizationsboards as well.

Document Creation/CollaborationYour members can create, save, distribute and work withone another on reports, flyers or any kind of publication withdocument creation and collaboration. Changes are trackedand saved, too.

Event ManagementDoes your organization hold events annual, regional, or

even online? If so, events can be coordinated via a socialnetwork, especially those that have event-managementfunctionality. When using event management and socialmedia features like groups and document collaboration,events can change from a date-specific meeting to a year-round happening.

First-Mover AdvantageIs your association or non-profit in direct or indirectcompetition with other organizations? Set yourself apart fromthem by offering your own branded social network.

Additional Revenue GenerationPut your social network to work for your organization, byoffering sponsorships to companies that can benefit fromexposure to your members. Sponsors find these kinds ofopportunities very attractive, because social networks arehighly used by people who are already collaborating andconnecting with others. Tie this in with events, and you havethe potential to bring in a large amount of revenue.


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All this being said, some important considerations must be takeninto account when thinking about applying technology at theassociation/non-profit level.

Security becomes more important and platforms must be analyzedto understand how user groups can be tiered, how object within theplatform (data) can be categorized for viewing, and how multipleuser groups can protect their data sets from each other (multi-tenantplatform). Furthermore, security authentication and sign-ontechnologies must be trusted by end users and sometimesintegrated with existing systems. In line with these securityconsiderations, more often than not, associations and non-profits willlikely want to self-host their applications and require access to allsource code.

Also, the ability to track actions within and site and audit theseactivities becomes important for groups that have certain record-keeping requirements. A mechanism for tracking all actions andquickly indexing and searching system content is often required forthis purpose.

Finally, as associations and non-profits often have numerous legacysystems in use, the social platform must often act as a portalcontainer in which numerous applications must integrate and run.Appropriate social platforms should support REST and/or SOAP

style web services, as well as be customizable in support of otherXML data integration.

Case Studies

Non-profits, associations, companies and government agencies allare utilizing social media technologies in both interesting andsuccessful ways. In particular, non-profits and associations canstudy certain sectors that have been early adopters of theseplatforms to think of news ways to apply these technologies. Someof these representative applications include:

Entity: Canadian Airports CouncilProject: A site that enables collaboration and collective

expertise among a geographically dispersedmembership.

Entity: US Agency for International Development (USAID)Project: GlobalDevelopmentCommons.net, a collaboration site

that enables members to share information, buildcommunities and partner with others for international


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development efforts.

Entity: American Heart AssociationProject: My AmericanHeart, a community for its member

health professionals that provides educationalmaterials and member help, as well as information onresearch awards and practice guidelines.

Entity: National GeographicProject: The scientific/educational organization has positioned

a full community (blogs, forums, photos, onlineevents) around its magazine content and a programthat features live video of animals in the wild.

Entity: Toy Industry AssociationProject: ToyConnections, a social network for the toy and

youth-entertainment industry. Includes blogs, chatrooms, messaging, a wiki, profiles, and associateconnections.

Entity: Healthcare Information and Management SystemsSociety

Project: HIMSS Connect is a social-networking tool offered toboth HIMSS members and attendees to theorganizations annual conference. Includes an

interactive mapping tool that lets members with similarinterests or demographic attributes find one another.

Entity: FilmsforLearning.orgProject: Initially funded by the National Endowment for

Science Technology and Arts, the site enables thoseinterested in creating videos or movies to collaborateon a worldwide scale.

Entity: Gridiron Greats Assistance FundProject: This organization, which helps retired pro football

players in need, added blogging, multimedia andauctions to its already-established Web site.

Entity: Star-TidesProject: Network of government, non-profit, academic, and

other individuals who are dedicated to providing low-cost, transportable infrastructure for post-disaster,impoverished, or post-war individuals.


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Entity: BisikletcilerProject: This non-profit cycling organization located in Turkey

includes at its site discussion forums, blogs, groupsand a media gallery to foster a robust presence for itsgrowing community.

Portalfuze Services

Portalfuze is a premier developer of complex, enterprise-strengthsocial media applications. Our particular niche focuses on verycustomized or functional networks and applications where off-the-shelf applications are not well suited. We are also well suited tointegrating social-media functionalities with any existing Web sites orservices.

We accomplish this goal by combining our consulting services with asocial-media development platform thats so state of the art, it wouldrank among the best off-the-shelf enterprise systems availabletoday.

With more than 80% of most of our clients project requirementspreconfigured in our development platform, our clients often find usto be the most economical solution for their challenges. Whatsmore, they see us as their best choice in providing a solid foundationfor the future of their social initiatives.

It is important for non-profits and other organizations that useenterprise-level software to understand how social-mediatechnology will impact their internal and external users. This has tohappen before any new technology adoption occurs. Portalfuze hasthe internal staff that can help you translate social media andcollaboration across your enterprise, as well as alliances with someof the top experts on emerging social media technologies.

Our services include:

Social Media PlanningOur experts can help you develop plans that begin to incorporatecurrent social-media functionalities, including networking,collaboration, messaging, user-produced content, two-way andmulti-way discussions, and others into your intranet and Web-basedproperties.

We will help lay out a roadmap that supports either a phasedintroduction of these technologies, or a one-time complete overhaul.


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Additionally, we'll make sure platforms are in place not just tosupport current technologies, but also be positioned for future ones.

Collaborative Virtual EnvironmentsLet us perform a thorough review of your legacy platforms and showyou how new platforms can help to begin to tie together existingapplications and application users. Furthermore, we'll explore howemployees and members interact with each other and study theinformation flow within that base to make suggestions on systemsthat can help facilitate and encourage collaboration andengagement.

Needs AnalysisOne of our expert team members can spend time with your IT staff

to understand the social-media initiatives being evaluatedthroughout your organization. Well help your team create not justrequirement documents, but also reports and analysis for internaluse that begin to define budgets and analyze benefits of variousprojects.

When it comes time to set up the platform, we can do as little asinstall its source code and train your team to start developing with it,or as much as developing a turnkey collaborative platform for you.Our licenses include the complete source code from ourdevelopment platform/library, and a negotiated number of hours for

customization, installation and training. For new applications, we'll:

Step 1: Load our development platform/library Step 2: Select modules from our library for inclusion in

deployed platform Step 3: Build or add existing custom modules following our

development platforms conventions Step 4: Use admin layer to customize branding and graphic-

user interfaces (GUIs)

For existing applications, we'll either:

Migrate your infrastructure by renaming files to follow ourdevelopment platforms conventions-or-

Integrate our development platforms functions by running inparallel to existing webapp cluster and utilizing SOAP- orREST-style Web services

On the other hand, if we discover that your organization would bebetter served by the use of a different platform, we will recommend


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that option and offer to customize that solution. At Portalfuze, we areall about helping our clients find, build and utilize the best optionsavailable for their social-media needs.

Developing a great social media/collaboration application is only apartial step your enterprise needs to take to benefit from thetechnologies Portalfuze supplies. The next step is to roll out theseapplications and get your user base actively using them. We offerseveral options to support these goals:

Hosted or InstalledThe platforms we develop are generally installed on our servers oryours, and set up to host all associated files internally on yourcompany's networks. That being said, we have developed and

integrated applications that take advantage of the cloud model andcan store/serve data rich files on services such as Amazon S3 orinternally.

Set-Up and Training / CustomizationWe can perform a bare-bones install of our development platform.To assist you in this scenario, we can provide a one-day (or more)introduction training to show your IT team how to customize andintegrate it with other applications. We can also perform allcustomization and install work on your servers. After installation, wecan provide onsite or remote training for your teams.

Our development platform is designed specifically with expansionand customization in mind. By following simple naming conventions,new applications on the production server will be recognized andacquire social characteristics. Your team can develop these apps, orour staff can provide off-site development services.

Development of User ManualsOur team can research and write user manuals and supportdocumentation for your unique application thats built on ourdevelopment platform.

Additional SupportPortalfuze is there with you every step of the way, even after theinitial work is done. We can help with:

Installation of new modules and upgrading of current ones The administration of your new platform Troubleshooting any legacy or new applications being

integrated into the platform Maintenance Other tasks - just ask and we'll do everything we can to help


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The Portalfuze Development Platform

Its important to know that our platform isnt like most other social-media platforms. Ours is not an off-the-shelf platform that, onceloaded, is by and large the end product. It is also not one of thosefree social-network Web sites where a pre-defined set offunctionalities is standard, and thats about all you get (unless youpay monthly charges for more).

Instead, think of our development platform and library as more of astarting point, tied to a toolbox that helps to build what yourorganization needs: a truly custom social-media service that meetsthe specific, unique goals and mission of your non-profit.

With it, you can deploy new functionalities, as well as have a greatfoundation to scale out future functionality. To that end, we havemade sure our development platform has a library stocked withstandard social-networking features and architecture, so that itquickly integrates with an enterprises current and future properties.In fact, the libraries in our development platform contain up to 80%of the features youll need to build a new service.

Our development platform uses the most up-to-date Javatechnologies, which are widely accepted at all levels within mostenterprises. In fact, our use of J2EE in the development of the

platform makes it the most technically advanced, enterprise-strengthsocial-media platform available in and of itself. Not bad for what isreally the starting point for your social network.

In addition, Portalfuze can easily be used with many other types ofWeb-based platforms, including .Net, Jive and Telligent; and amyriad of content-management systems, databases, messagingservices and others.

Also of note, we provide our development platform/library at noadditional charge. We see our biggest job as to assist you with the

customization of the platform to your organizations specific needs,as well as the import of current Web-based applications. We canalso build custom Web applications that can be integrated into theplatform. And we give you access to a wide range of consultingoptions, with either our help or the assistance of a member of ourpartner network.

Specific features of the Portalfuze development platform and libraryinclude:


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State-of-the-Art SecurityConventions-based modular security (utilizing SpringSecurity) provides a robust and secure Access Control List(ACL) by default. By following Portalfuze namingconventions or utilizing simple XML configuration, thesecurity framework can control individual access at a groupor module level.

Blogs/Status Updates/MicrobloggingPortalfuze features a full blogging platform, along with theability for users to publish short status updates (also calledmicroblogging), in a style thats similar to the Twitter service.

Facebook Connect/OpenID Integration

Portalfuze gives your users multiple ways to log in. Besides(or in addition to) your own registration process, you canimplement Facebook Connect and/or OpenID integration.Facebook Connect provides its members to seamlessly"connect" their Facebook accounts with our platform (andconversely, your platform). OpenID, meantime, is anidentification service where users can utilize one loginacross multiple Web sites and services.

User Profile and Account ManagementProfiles can contain as few or many fields as the network

owner wishes, with the user having total control over theiraccount. Other options include giving users the ability to hidesome or all of their information.

Dually Verified Associate and Network BuildingFor two people to become "associates," "friends," etc., bothmust agree to the arrangement, which promotes trust amongall network participants.

Object Rank, Review and CommentWhether its comments, products or other objects, users can

rank, review and make comments on them.

Built-In Internet Protocol and/or GPS Geolocation InterfaceKnowing where users are can be important, if you wish tobuild in "presence" applications for mobile applications,directory searches or a myriad of other potential services.

Message BoardsYour users can leave messages for one another, and evenattach files, documents, photos, videos and more to those


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messages.

Q&A ForumsSimilar to a message board, your users can ask questionsand get direct answers to them in our Q&A forums.Document, photo and video attaching are available, too.

Full Auditing Capabilities, Including Activity TrackingAll activities on existing or custom modules from a user andgroup perspective are tracked and available for use inadvanced social and collaboration tools with no additionalcoding. Our activity tracker features advanced algorithms formaking the data available in a social context. All objects canbe tracked for activity as well.

Public- and Private-Group FormationYou can set up your own subject-based collaborative groupsin the platform, and/or give your users the option ofestablishing their own groups. They also have the choice ofmaking their groups public or private. The security system is"group aware," so no additional code needs to be added forgroup security. E-mail group listserve functionality (real timeand digest mode), with additional activity notification via anactivity module, is also included.

Calendars/Event PlanningPortalfuze can provide anything from a simple calendarwhere you and your users can place events, to full eventplanning entirely within the platform.

DirectoriesProvide a service directory for your members in which to listthemselves, similar to an online phonebook. You can alsoextend this functionality to any user group established withinthe platform.

File ManagementGive your users the ability to store and manage their filesdirectly within the platform. You can host the files on yourown servers, or via cloud services like Amazon S3, withoutany additional coding.

With our development platform and associated consulting services,Portalfuze can get organizations started with building their ownapplications and networks, or can deliver custom-built turnkeyproducts that can be plugged in to current Web sites and services


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And as weve previously said, if for some reason our platform isntthe best suited for your organization, well find and customize theone that fits your needs. Our goal is to create the best solution foryour non-profit.

Hardware/Server Considerations

Since many applications will need to scale to handle high-trafficsituations, our system is designed to support clustering and loadbalancing. In addition, indexing engines are used for search, anddistributed cache servers are utilized. Our development platformwas designed to be able to handle appserver clustering without anyissues, and was engineered to work with many different third-partyapplications, as well as our recommended open-source technologydeck, which includes:

Security (authentication/authorization framework) - singlesign-on (SSO) using Josso, CAS, custom SSO system, etc.All security is portable and easily configurable via XML.Anonymous users can be implemented as well

Profile, registration, and user management from the adminside are available, which brings with it common features likean abuse resistant reset password system, disable-userability, etc.

Integration with social networks available via FacebookConnect and OpenID

Alerting system that triggers alerts for specific activities.Portalfuze uses a Java message service (JMS)-based alertsystem for heavy-traffic applications

Multi-level caching system that allows us to focus onbusiness logic without having to take extreme measures forperformance. Caching occurs on the object-relationalmapping (ORM) level as well as display level

An activity-tracking system, following our POJO modelingapproach, where custom-activity tracking and audit trackingresults are generated

Custom components that follow standard conventions canre-use common Portalfuze infrastructure such as pagination

Portalfuze enables several options to plug in indexingengines for searching, including existing database indexingtools, Lucene, Apache Solr (faceted searching), etc.

OSWorkflow integration Hibernate query language, which allows for optimization of

ORM-generated queries for whatever database is beingused (e.g.: MS SQL Server)

Business logic (management layer) can be made quickly


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available as REST or SOAP style Web services, and reusedacross existing portals, or services

Portalfuze and the Future of Social Media

The direction of the overall social-media space right now is veryindeterminate. No standards exist yet. Already, at least one groupis examining:

Data portability

Client-supported technologies

Back-end architecture

Common code base and integration points across

technologies Industry best practices

Legal and privacy policies

Because of our development platforms modular configurations,Portalfuze will be well suited to meet any kind of specificationsand/or standards, once theyre determined. This is a crucial point fororganizations that need to invest in social media right now, as coststo upgrade to any new standards will likely be lower and IT-relatedheadaches will be fewer by using Portalfuzes developmentplatform and consulting services.


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Portalfuze is Enterprise Social Media, At Your Service. We are a full-service technology-development firm specializing in social media.

Portalfuze customizes social-media applications from simple widgets thatengage an audience on existing networks, all the way up to full-blownvertically integrated social networks. Put simply, Portalfuze is all aboutoptions; whether its developing with our own platform or customizing out-of-the-box packages, we do whats best for both our clients and their endusers. Portalfuze has the technology and the know-how to helpcompanies, non-profits and government achieve their social-media goals.Portalfuze also owns and operates Sibdu (www.Sibdu.com), a free socialnetwork for commercial real estate; and Feedfuze (www.Feedfuze.com), afree RSS feed aggregation/publishing tool.

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