Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

Finally, I have real broadband. We moved last weekend to a town that has actual real cable high speed internet. Unfortunately, it is the apparently increasingly dastardly Comcast, but it is so way much better than satellite by Hughesnet, that I can’t really find it in myself to complain. Traffic is flying at four plus times the speed, I can actually do remote shell sessions that aren’t painful. I can Skype again (once I figure out how to use my USB headset on Linux.) I have to admit to being a very happy camper.

I’ve gotten some nice kudos for my blog in the past few days, and it feels nice to know that people read the blog, and get something out of it. I want to make the blog better, and also, more findable. I’m not going to embark on the 31 days to a better blog challenge, it’s a bit too much for me to plunge into, but I will be doing bits and pieces of it over time, as well as delving deeply into search engine optimization (SEO), which is a topic that I have pretty much only watched from a distance for far too long. I’ll be blogging on that as I go through it, for sure.

As a first start, I have a new poll. I hope you’ll take it!

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I read three books recently that I thought would be worth reviewing here. They fall into that category of “business” books that I basically never read. I came upon these three for different reasons, and although I’m not interested in adopting their primary points of view, there were tidbits that were worth the read (or a skim, in one case) in the end.

The first book, called “Made to Stick:Why Some Ideas Survive, and Others Die.” I picked it up by happenstance, I think because I had NOSI on my mind, and I was thinking about how to talk to people about open source and nonprofits. It’s an interesting book, with a basic premise. in order to get an idea to stick, the idea needs to be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, tug at Emotions, and tell a Story (their acronym is SUCCES). They do a good job of using examples for each of these things (like why Southwest Airlines is so successful, and why the Kidney Heist urban legend sticks so well, among other stories. It’s worth a read, I think, if you have a message to get across.

The second book, called “Elements of Persuasion” is a book that was sent to me for free - someone thought that I might want to review it on my blog. This was the book I skimmed, because, honestly, I was bored after the first chapter. It basically only focuses on the last “S” part of the first book: storytelling. It uses examples and such, but it is not anywhere near as engaging and readable as “Made to Stick.” There ae a few interesting and useful tips, but if you are only going to buy one book about getting your message across, buy the first one, not this one.

Although in most cases, these books are designed for people who want to get more business (the first book not so much - they have some good nonprofit examples.) The third book is in a bit of a different category - not about landing more business, per se, but making more money. It’s called “Value Based Fees.” It’s written by this guy, Alan Weiss, who has written the “Ultimate Consulting” series, which seems to be focused primarily on making a lot of money in consulting. I would never have bought this book if it didn’t come recommended by a colleague who I respected. I mean, the cover has all these dollar bills on it! To explain a bit - he does big money consulting with huge Fortune 500 companies, and does projects for hundreds of thousands of dollars that result in the companies saving, or making, millions. A very different context than I, or most people reading this work in, for sure.

All of that said, he had some very interesting perspectives. One of which is something I would love to talk with other consultants (and clients, too) about. He thinks that time-based billing is bad. His reasons are interesting. On one hand, he feels that consultants should base their fees on the value they bring to the consulting relationship, not the time spent. He feels that there is an inherent conflict of interest in working for time - it is in the consultants interest to spend more time on the project, regardless of the outcome. And he thinks that deliverables are also problematic. He thinks that ultimately, all consulting relationships should boil down to the ultimate results for the client. His examples are things like saving millions by reducing employee turnover, increasing profits by streamlining processes, etc. Not about how many hours you spent at the client office, or how many reports you wrote. Really, what he thinks is that these forms of billing reduce the fees you can charge.

It’s a little odd, because mainly what he’s interested in is making more money. But some of his ideas are interesting, especially the notion of setting the fees on the value you bring, rather than the time you spend. I’m not sure how to make the translation to nonprofit consuting, but I do find it interesting how blanket his rejection of time-based fees are. And I do, certainly see his point about conflict of interest - if we charge by the hour, we have an interest in spending more time.

My favorite consulting book is still “The Consultant’s Calling” which, in some ways is diametrically opposed to the values of this book. But, there are some useful ideas to mull over.

The dust is settling. I looked over Allan Benamer’s post on the Convio and Kintera initiatives, I looked harder at the Convio Open and Kintera Connect docs, and I also had a chat with some Kintera folk. I have a few comments.

Allan is right - the Kintera API is more comprehensive, and provides for more flexibility than the Convio API. Of course, the API was only one part of Convio’s initiative, so I do still think they come out ahead, a bit. But it may well be that for more complex integrations, the Kintera API will provide more power.

REST vs SOAP: Kintera seems to have chosen the “more power, harder to code” choice. I could argue it either way.

Methinks vendors in this space still just don’t grok, really, what “open” means. While I appreciate that one can, theoretically (I have yet to test it) easily become a “partner” with either company - but that doesn’t quite count as open. Allan hit the nail on the head when he said:

Again, this is a lesson in Web 2.0 transparency both for the sector and the vendors who serve it. Control? Let it go. I really mean that. From both a business point of view and from the point of view of how our sector should work to heighten transparency in society at large, there’s no reason to limit the ability of coders to learn about and discuss the API at hand. And the big guys have already done this work, check out the way Google and Amazon distribute their APIs. Those shine as industry-standard examples of how open APIs need to be distributed.

He’s right. Open it up, let anyone bang on test data to try things out, and you never know what might happen. The drive toward open everything is pretty inexorable, and the pressure is only going to get greater.

Ubuntu Linux has a new release, version 7.10, called “Gutsy Gibbon.” (Really I don’t know where these names come from!) There is a great review at Wired that gives a good overview of what you’ll find. They say, among other things:

Gutsy Gibbon is certainly easier to install and set up than Windows Vista, and it’s very close to matching Mac OS X when it comes to making things “just work” out of the box. Wi-Fi, printing, my digital camera and even my iPod all worked immediately after installation — no drivers or other software required.

I’m in the middle of moving, otherwise, I’d be checking it out immediately. Once I get settled in a couple of weeks, I’ll be giving it a spin, for sure. It seems that with Ubuntu, Linux is getting closer and closer to being a completely viable and usable desktop for everyone.

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One of the wonderful things that has happened since I wrote the Open API whitepaper way back in January, is that finally, vendors are realizing how important openness really is, and are beginning to implement things in a big way.

Two new initiatives have come to light in the last couple of days, one from Kintera, called “Connect” , and the other from Convio, called “Open“. They are both worth having a look at, especially if you are considering either implementing a web application platform, or if you are a consultant type looking for ways to integrate data for your clients.

At first blush, although Kintera officially got out the door first, announcing Connect weeks ago, and delivering the APIs and docs on Friday, their play is a good start, but Convio, announcing Open tomorrow, appears to be ahead in terms of providing real openness. Here’s a quick overview of both initiatives. You make your own conclusions.

Kintera’s Connect has an API that can do some very important things. It allows you to access 16 entities within the Kintera application, including lots of data about contacts, plus data about appointments and tasks. The API is SOAP. One of my favorite quotes in the Connect documentation is this one: “As long as you can invoke the API over HTTP, your application can be Microsoft, HP, IBM, Novell, Oracle, even Sun-based. (emphasis mine) ” ooooooh… During the NTEN call on Connect, they had mentioned that they were only going to publish sample code in C# and Java. It appears, from perusing the documentation, that someone in Kintera saw the light, and included PHP code.

In any event, Kintera’s API goes a long way to help organizations be freed from yet another data silo, and they are free.

Convio has, seemingly, gotten some serious Web 2.0 religion. Open has 3 components, APIs, Database Connectors, and Extensions. The geek in me thinks the Convio APIs are wicked cool, since they allow you to do client programming via AJAX, as well as more standard server-based programming. They work by REST via POST, or JSON. Their code on the server-based method examples only include PHP at this point (the client based method code examples are in the expected HTML and Javascript.)

Database Connectors are specific tools to help people connect Convio and specific apps, including Blackbaud’s Raiser’s edge, and … Salesforce! Extensions are ways to connect the Convio app to other Web 2.0 apps out there. They’ve got this great Facebook application - basically a template that allows an organization to create their own Facebook app. Extensions also include the pantheon of Web 2.0 gods: Flickr, RSS, Google, etc.

Convio’s APIs and Extensions are free, but the Database connectors have consulting costs associated with them, and that makes sense to me.

Bottom line: Kintera takes some important steps to open up their application. Convio takes more, bigger steps that appear to eclipse what Kintera has done. But I think time will tell. I have some advice for both companies, though:

• Keep going - it’s looking more and more like not only are people expecting the ability to mash their data and other data more, it’s also looking like a pretty good business model. Create and foster developer and user communities in the same way that Salesforce and open source communities do. Speaking of communities …
• Open up beyond your “partners” - Really getting involved in writing apps for either platform requires that people become official partners of the companies. You’re going to get a much more vibrant developer community involved in developing new stuff for your platforms if you eliminate hurdles. What’s to lose?
• Deliver, don’t just hype - of course, marketing is important, but when the rubber really has to meet the road, be there with more than vaporware. Both companies are making strides, but people want to look under the hood, fast! It would be nice if the announcement and the delivery weren’t so far apart (we waited a long time for the Kintera docs after the NTEN call - they should have either postponed the call, or gotten the docs done sooner.) Speaking of Kintera …
• Kintera: try to catch up - Of course, the big 800 pound gorilla has become Salesforce - and their platform is becoming what people are measuring against. The Kintera API looks, quite honestly, seriously wimpy in comparison to either Convio or Salesforce. But then again, they are better than Blackbaud, which still has no open APIs (that is, ones that are free), let alone anything else. (”Johnnie, can you spell ‘data silo’?” … “b … l … a … c …”)

One of the areas of technology I watch is the world of “enterprise” IT. Think big companies, lots of bucks, lots of boxes. Some nonprofits fit into this category, but most nonprofits that I work with don’t. I think sometimes, interesting things come out of that watching. For instance, Gartner’s top 10 technologies to watch in 2008. There’s some great stuff there, like virtualization, social software, green IT, etc.

The striking thing: open source software wasn’t on their list. It was on their list for a few years, and has now fallen off. And that’s because in the enterprise world, for the most part, open source software is a given part of the mix. It’s not a strategic technology to watch, it’s old news.

It is nice to see that “Green IT ” tops Gartner’s list. I really do hope that the CIOs of the world pay attention.

I’ve been working hard on one project in particular over the past few months: the updating and expanding of the NOSI primer: “Choosing and Using Free and Open Source Software: A Primer for Nonprofits“. It’s taken a while, has some nice new features, and, basically, I’m pretty proud of it.

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(Photo by rob_pym)

I’m hosting this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants! Sorry it’s a day late. The topic I chose was a tough one, too: I asked people to talk about mistakes they make with clients, and how they deal with them. There weren’t many takers on this one, but there are some real troopers out there in the nonprofit consultant blogosphere, so there’s some great stuff to talk about. And, since it’s a tough topic, I’ll not take myself off the hook.

The theme in all of the blog posts, and in my own approach to this issue, is transparency: we do all make mistakes, and what’s important is being honest about them.

Mark, of Sea Change Strategies, talks about five mistakes he’s made in working with clients, includes things such as ignoring internal organizational dynamics, and getting too involved, or not involved enough. He has some really good thoughts worth considering as we work with clients over time.

Michele Martin gets naked, that is, practices her transparency preaching, and talks about mistakes she’s made, and goes into detail on her approach to dealing with mistakes.

Michael Stein talks about three different kinds of mistakes that one can make in technology consulting, including some errors of process, and the “Hot Dog” syndrome. A great read for anyone who does development for clients.

I’ve made most of the mistakes outlined in all three of these brave blog postings. I think it is easy to feel like we’re the “experts” so we shouldn’t make mistakes. It’s all to easy (and I’ve seen it often) to do anything we can to avoid being wrong about something. Transparency, or, Michele Martin’s phrase, “getting naked” is key, I think. Being transparent with clients about our own processes and weak points, and where we may falter, and, most importantly, being transparent and honest when we make mistakes, is what can make the difference between happy clients and ones that wish they’d picked someone else.

I’ve been using activeCollab for a few months now. It’s designed as a basecamp clone. It has some things missing, for sure, but it has been useful to me. I had hoped to more actively use it once the new version came out. However, that won’t happen.

activeCollab is going commercial. It seems to me that they could learn from the other successful projects out there - the really successful projects are supported by a wide variety of methods, whether it be a support model, a nonprofit foundation model, a hosted model, and others. In fact, pretty much every open source project that has gone commercial, or had a change in license, caused a fork, pretty much killing the original (like Mambo, or XFree86.) They have had an active user community, many of which, I imagine, are going elsewhere.

Luckily, there is ProjectPier, which is a fork of activeCollab, and will remain open source. I’ll be moving from activeCollab to ProjectPier soon.