My vision for data portability utopia
Posted on February 24, 2008
Filed Under Nonprofit, Salesforce, mobility | 2 Comments
I’ve been following the conversation around the “collaboration wars.” Tit for tat comparisons between Microsoft Word and Google Docs. What’s the point?
I find it ironic that users yell and scream that they want one massive application that does everything including the kitchen sink, then scream “bloat! bloat!” when companies try and deliver exactly that.
We have choices, people. That’s good. Let’s celebrate the smaller, more streamlined applications that do a fantastic job at a few core tasks. It’s not about the application’s features, it’s about how they handle data. They must spend as much time worrying about how a user is going to bring existing data in and out as they do worrying about how the user will create and manage new information.
I’m tired of reading about how the data portability movement is all about social network profiles. It’s much more than that (I hope). You’ll sell me based on what you do with the data I feed in, and how easily you let me take that data out again…not on how tightly you hold on to me once I’m a customer. My “data” is not just the photos I upload or my friends’ birthdays and email addresses.
Case in point: We have our Call-on Congress event coming up in a couple of weeks, where we’re bringing in 40 advocates from all over the country for an advocacy training day and visits to Capitol Hill. We are prepping materials for folders for the advocates, as well as what they’ll bring with them to their Congressional meetings. I’m up here in New Jersey, the rest of the staff is in Virginia. The VA-based folks are writing the copy, it’s my job to do the formatting/layout, making sure all the documents look consistent.
Here’s what we’re doing to make sure all the documents are accurate and ready to go:
- Each document starts as a Google Doc in our Google Apps, collaborated between folks within C3 to make sure the wording is right.
- Once it is approved and ready for formatting, I get a task assigned to me in Salesforce letting me know. Even though other tools we use have task management features, Salesforce is our trusted system for assigning tasks between us so we stick with it.
- If I haven’t already been collaborating on the document, the final version is shared with me in Google Docs.
- I export the file to Word and if it’s just simple text, I leave it in Word to add logos, formatting, headers/footers, etc. Otherwise, I bring the text into InDesign for more complicated layouts.
- I export the file to PDF. If I feel the team needs to review the layout (since the copy is already final), I’ll make the PDF editable/reviewable in Adobe Reader and post to our shared WebDAV server we only use for Acrobat comment layers. Otherwise, I just create a simple PDF and leave it at that.
- We use Basecamp for project-related messaging and files. So I’ll post the final PDF there, either with a message letting folks know I think they need to review/comment on the PDF or I’ll post directly to the files area in a “Ready for binders” category I set up.
- I mark the task complete in Salesforce, which lets folks see which documents still need my attention.
- When the binders are ready for assembly, folks just have to view the “ready” file category in Basecamp and pull down the final documents for reproduction. Since the files are all PDF now, I don’t have to worry about font issues or the layout shifting around when it’s opened by someone else using the Word 2003 or 2007.
No files are emailed. No single tool would work as well as when we use them all in a clear, organized fashion. To me, it’s like trying to build a house with a swiss army knife. Even though you can use the end of a saw to bang something in, you’ll do a better job if you reach for a hammer.
Basecamp is handy for project milestones, messages and files, but the lack of WYSISYG in the Writeboards makes that part of the suite unusable for us. Google Docs is phenomenal for collaboration, but painful for formatting compared to desktop software.
Developers either have to spread their resources thin (and therefore charge more) trying to add features that duplicate what the competition does, or they can (and should) say, “hey, this is what we do really well…stick with us for that, and go use the other guys for what they do really well, and we’ll all concentrate on ways we can make it easy for you to move back and forth so you’ll be happy with both of us.”
That is why I’ve been so jazzed about the Convio/Salesforce connector. It’s not about the tool. It’s about the conversations I’ve had with both companies, and that is exactly the attitude they are both taking.
MailPlane
Posted on February 24, 2008
Filed Under Macintosh | 1 Comment
Now that I’m living my email life under the Google umbrella, I’ve fallen in love with MailPlane.
MailPlane is a Mac OS X desktop application for Gmail. I know what you’re thinking…$25 for a dedicated Google email browser? I can load Gmail or my Google apps page in any browser for free. I can get my email via POP or IMAP for free. Why Mailplane?
- While Google has IMAP access, with 4 accounts and some large mailboxes I found Mail.app to be unreliable. Searches were slow, crashes were frequent. It would have been more reliable had I used POP to get my mail, but I wanted to keep read states in sync between the Google browser and email client.
- I have 5 Google email accounts that I regularly check, including one @gmail.com address. Bouncing around browser tabs is a pain in the butt. This is especially true for addresses in the same domain, requiring me to sign in and out each time. With MailPlane, I can keep all accounts signed in at the same time and switch back and forth easily. That alone was worth the fee, but wait, there’s more…
- I can use Apple’s Address Book for email addresses.
- MailPlane is tons faster and more flexible than any email client for searching. It’s the browser version of Gmail, after all.
- Drag & drop attachments. Images are automatically optimized.
- Growl notifications and a clean, handy menu bar icon.
- mailto: links direct to MailPlane, not Mail.
I prefer a desktop client for email and couldn’t get used to doing all my email in browser tabs. MailPlane gives me the best of both worlds.
Palm’s new ad campaign is funny
Posted on February 17, 2008
Filed Under mobility | Leave a Comment
Image borrowed from RIMarkable
Anyone who has actually tried to use Palm or Windows Mobile to download email on a regular basis is laughing hysterically right now. Blackberry email works reliably 99.9% of the time, except for when RIM is having a nationwide outage of a few hours.
I’ve owned devices on all 3 platforms at one time or another. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. Reliable email is not one of Palm’s strengths by a long shot, and it’s only moderately passable on Windows Mobile. Blackberry blows them both away on that count, even on a “bad” day.
But hey, good luck with that campaign, Palm.
Technology is an investment, even when it’s free
Posted on February 16, 2008
Filed Under Nonprofit | 2 Comments
From a Huffington Post article about the Salesforce event last week:
With Salesforce Foundation’s 10 free licenses allowing any nonprofit to use Salesforce, accompanied with Google’s Enterprise Apps for Nonprofits, one can essentially set up a “nonprofit on demand,” and do so effectively. A new nonprofit can get the same back end as Cisco, and get it without spending a dime.
In theory, he’s absolutely right. Salesforce and Google Apps are a killer combination for any nonprofit. It allows a small nonprofit like us with a distributed staff to look much bigger than we are for a lot less money.
However, I think it’s a bit misleading to say that you can “get it without spending a dime.” Yes, you can get these tools donated for free. But if you’ve started a nonprofit chances are your priority is the mission, not the technology. You get the technology for free, but it’s still a waste if you don’t learn how to use it well. Not many nonprofits are founded by folks who know what to do with the “same back end as Cisco.”
Time is money. Whether it’s your time or the time of a consultant you use to help you get the most out of these tools. Far too often I’ve spoken to folks who have gotten the Salesforce license donation and can’t put the time or attention into it that’s needed to really understand how it works and configure it for their organization’s unique needs.
It takes time to learn how to use a CRM designed for multi-million dollar companies. It takes time and patience to optimize your data. If you aren’t willing to spend days or weeks of your time to figure it all out, you should just stand up and slowly back away from the keyboard before you break something.
I worked with consultants from the get-go to help us get Salesforce set up. It was just a short-term project to get us off the ground. I made a point of learning as much as I could while we had the help, so I was easily able to take over as administrator when the consulting contract ended.
I made a strong argument to our Board that it was an investment worth making, and I don’t regret that decision. From the beginning, I stressed that my time was valuable and if I spent too much of that time poking around in the dark I would be wasting the organization’s money in the long run. I also made the point that if we waited to ask for (and pay for) help, it would cost us more to correct the mistakes I knew I would make due to my lack of knowledge of best practices. Luckily, I work for an organization that thinks two steps ahead and they agreed with me.
It’s not about getting something “without spending a dime.” It’s about spending your donor’s dimes wisely. To my mind, the less time I spend fighting with technology, the more time I have to help fight colorectal cancer.
Salesforce Foundation event in NYC
Posted on February 14, 2008
Filed Under Nonprofit | 5 Comments
Eric and I share a Google calendar where we put those appointments that will require the other one to have primary parenting duty. It’s a constant back and forth with us, varying between a “first come, first can go” and “I can’t move this appointment and my job is on the line if I’m not there” thing.
Since one of us has to drive a child 35 miles each way to school, when one parent is out of town the other is rather stuck on making any plans. Certainly if something comes up that is “Gee, I’d love to go to this…” it’s lower priority than if the other parent has a meeting or out-of-town assignment.
Usually, I can accept what I have to miss to accommodate Eric’s travel, but this one that I missed yesterday hurt:
The Salesforce.com Foundation…will host a special event dedicated to driving innovation for nonprofit success. The event will bring together more than 200 members of salesforce.com’s nonprofit community at the Park Central Hotel in New York City to discuss and learn about the latest technologies and strategies to fuel their social change missions. The event also celebrates the milestone that more than 3,000 nonprofits around the world are using donated licenses of Salesforce to revolutionize their organizations as part of salesforce.com’s unique 1/1/1 integrated corporate philanthropy model.
The Salesforce.com Foundation Innovation for Nonprofit Success Day is a free, full-day event packed with information on the latest technologies and strategies to help nonprofit organizations achieve new levels of success. In addition to multiple sessions by the Salesforce.com Foundation and partners designed for users of all levels, featured speakers include Holly Ross of the Nonprofit Technology Network, technology experts from Network for Good, NPower and the United Nations. Salesforce.com Foundation executive director Suzanne DiBianca will host a lunchtime panel on the rise of social enterprise, Web 2.0 and the future of philanthropy with CEOs and executives from Donorschoose.org, Endeavor.org, Kiva.org and the Rockefeller Foundation.
I so wanted to go to, but no chance since Eric is on an assignment in Minneapolis at the moment. i have good friends, but I wouldn’t think of asking anyone to drive my daughter 70 miles round trip so I can go to a great networking/learning event.
3,000 nonprofits are now using Salesforce? Pretty cool. When we started in late Spring 2006, I think I remember being told there were somewhere around 450-500. There are now Salesforce Nonprofit User Groups in San Francisco, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
Ironically, while some Convio folks were in NYC yesterday giving a demo of the new Convio/Salesforce connector, I was in New Jersey actually using it. Finally! So a new record with valid email in Salesforce now lands in Convio without manual intervention from me and visa versa.
I have a few hundred records that I have to reconcile by hand due to accidental dupes or field conventions that don’t match up, but other than that it’s actually working!
Next step on this project is to work out some details on how transactions in Convio will sync up to Donations/Opportunities in Salesforce and we’ll be ready to set all this up as a scheduled, daily process.
