Convio is building CRM for the rest of us
Posted on June 19, 2008
Filed Under Internet & Technology, Nonprofit | 1 Comment
Allan Benamer has a great post which gives an overview of all the fun stuff that’s happening in the nonprofit technology space these days.
I was going to leave a comment on his post, but then decided it’s time to throw my own $0.02 into the conversation.
I will never forget the chat I had 2 years ago with the senior GetActive employee who oversaw data integration projects. I asked about plans for integration between GetActive and Salesforce. To say that he blew me off was kind. And look at ‘em now!
I am very happy for my friends at Convio and the Salesforce Foundation that this is happening. I’ve had a chance to see an early demo of Aikido, and it’s incredible for such a young project.
Alas, to answer some questions I’ve been getting, despite what may appear to be an obvious fit for C3 (Convio? Salesforce? Hello!) I have decided not to participate in the Charter program. I wanted to, I really did. There are features in Aikido that had me cleaning up my chin after I saw them (think: relationship management). But we’re too far gone in Salesforce. Even though Convio’s CRM is built on Force.com and is Salesforce, there’s currently no easy way I can add it on to my existing Salesforce instance without losing some of the customization I’ve built on over the years.
For example, let’s say someone buys pins on our website through our Convio eCommerce store. Overnight, the buyer is added as a contact in Salesforce, the transaction is added as an opportunity (along with appropriate workflow rules so the office knows to send the pins and we can track that they did and when). At the same time, the inventory custom object we have is updated to reflect that pins will soon be leaving the shelf. The Convio CRM wouldn’t be able to do anything with this, and I couldn’t have Aikido and the opportunity-based customizations I already had at the same time.
That was a deal breaker for us. Aikido is a great fit for an organization that will either be touching Salesforce for the first time, or has been using the nonprofit template with minimal changes.
Anyway, why is Convio for “the rest of us?” Back to Allan’s post:
Despite the self-imposed quiet period due to the acquisition of Kintera by Blackbaud, Kintera issued a press release on June 6th touting the ability to add custom entities (database tables) to Kintera and have them automatically exposed through the Kintera API. Yes, you can now develop unique third party apps in Kintera that have nothing to do with fundraising (even though everything has to do with fundraising).
Huh? Guess what, not every nonprofit has a developer down the hall. Even organizations twice our size (which are still pretty small) glaze over in fear when you start talking about custom development. They just want to save the world, they don’t want to program it.
I am not a developer or programmer. A lot of what I’ve been able to do for C3 in Salesforce has been possible just by reading some simple documentation where I didn’t need a programmer translate for me. It’s that easy. And that’s why I’ve become a bit of an evangelist for the platform. Since Aikido is built on the Salesforce platform, you’ll be able to tap in the AppExchange and all the functionality that already comes with the Enterprise edition. Plus, Aikido is fully supported by Convio. Organizations will have all the Salesforce support resources plus Convio support resources. Honestly, if you can’t get your question answered with all that you aren’t asking it right. Cool stuff.
Convio hasn’t released any information yet about Aikido pricing, but some of the preliminary strategy has been privately shared with me. I can tell you right now that what is most exciting about this project is how approachable it will be for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes. Trust me, they’re thinking of us little guys as well as the organization with the $10 million budget. It’s not just a new toy, it’s a strategy shift. This isn’t your grandmother’s Convio.
Before we can play the metered broadband game, don’t we have to understand the rules?
Posted on June 14, 2008
Filed Under Internet & Technology | Leave a Comment
Seems a lot of articles are popping up on metered broadband, especially on GigaOm. Essentially, charging “heavy” internet users more for broadband than “regular” users.
I read things like “5-gigabyte monthly cap” and it’s like talking about how much something costs in rubles when you have no idea what that means in the dollars you spend.
They keep talking about “abuse” but I have no idea what that means. How much is too much? Who sets that measure, and who agrees that it’s fair? Does it take the telecommuter and web worker into consideration? Doesn’t appear to be the case from the stories I’m reading. “Abuse” is measured by volume only, not intent. I’m online for many hours a day. I watch videos but don’t download movies, upload some graphics, manage C3’s various websites and web services which often means a bit of uploading and downloading, write for WebWorkerDaily, etc. Eric and the girls are on our DSL modem too, doing their thing. Should I be nervous about metered broadband? I have absolutely no idea.
Twitter for Those Left Behind
Posted on May 30, 2008
Filed Under Internet & Technology, Life | 2 Comments
You either get Twitter or you don’t.
Those that don’t will typically post comments like this one I just caught on FriendFeed:
Do people even really use twitter? I guess I mean in the sense that you actually accomplish some goal, or connect with people you physically know or work with?
Yes, Twitter is a lot of noise and useless crap. But it can be very, very useful. Here’s my story:
We found out last Thursday afternoon that Eric had to go to Bogota, Colombia on Monday for a 2-day work assignment. Now I’m sure there are a lot of really nice people in Colombia, but until this week all I cared to know about the South American country was that Americans shouldn’t travel there.
From an active US Government travel advisory.
The incidence of kidnapping in Colombia has diminished significantly from its peak at the beginning of this decade. Nevertheless, terrorist groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and other criminal organizations continue to kidnap and hold civilians for ransom or as political bargaining chips. No one is immune from kidnapping on the basis of occupation, nationality, or other factors. The FARC continue to hold three U.S. government contractors, having captured them when their plane crashed in a remote region of the country in February 2003. In January 2008, the FARC kidnapped six Colombian tourists from a beach on the Pacific coast in Chocó Department. Although the U.S. government places the highest priority on the safe recovery of kidnapped Americans, it is U.S. policy not to make concessions to or strike deals with kidnappers. Consequently, the U.S. government’s ability to assist kidnapping victims is limited.
Gee, have a nice trip dear.
Eric was assured he’d have a driver and that he’d be in “safe” areas other times. Still, I was very nervous about this trip.
Eric started using Twitter a few weeks ago. Remembering the story of the man who was saved from an Egyptian jail thanks to Twitter, I asked Eric to be sure to tweet as often as he could. Armed with m.twitter.com and a Twitter client on his laptop, that’s exactly what he did. Throughout the few days he was gone, in between some short phone calls, I was able to check his Twitter page and be assured he was okay. I’m sure tweets like, “Waiting in hotel lobby for colleagues before heading to office” weren’t very exciting to his other 54 followers, but it meant a whole lot to me.
In fact, he didn’t have to call and wake the kids at 5:30 am yesterday when his plane landed at JFK. I was already up and saw it on Twitter.
Salesforce IP checking is a royal PITA
Posted on April 4, 2008
Filed Under Internet & Technology, Salesforce, mobility | 5 Comments
A few months ago, Salesforce implemented a security feature that while I agree with on principle (and therefore don’t want to take steps to completely disable), it has been driving me crazy.
In short, when you log in to your Salesforce account, the system looks at your IP and recognizes whether or not you have logged in from that IP before or if your IP is already cleared by the system administrator. If it’s a new IP in your account, you have to click an activation link which sends an email to the account you’re trying to log in under. You click the link in the email which activates the IP and you’re good to log in and get work done.
Businesses that have static IPs (or even dynamic IPs that don’t move around that much) aren’t bothered by this. However, someone like me whose office usually consists of a laptop and any power outlet she can find is finding this security feature challenging to say the least.
Even when I’m home, Verizon is changing my IP at least 2-3x a day. It’s annoying to have to dance over to my email so often to authorize yet another IP address. Thankfully, that email arrives in fractions of a second after I click the link so I’m not delayed that much. Otherwise, I would just authorize entire IP blocks that Verizon DSL uses, which I’m not sure I want to do.
However, yesterday I found out what happens when I can’t get to my email: Not fun.
I did a little presentation/demo at the New York City Nonprofit Salesforce Usergroup. The meeting was hosted at Wells Fargo Insurance services in midtown Manhattan. When I attempted to log in to Salesforce, of course I got the “Activation Needed” box. Okay, so I fire up a browser window to check my email. Now that we are fully migrated to Google Apps, I no longer use a separate mail client. A window pops up that mail.google.com is blocked by the corporate firewall. The little note on the message says that all external email applications are blocked. Uh oh.
So what did we do so I could use my Salesforce account during the demo?
Another attendee (thanks again, Marc!) found that he could use my computer to log in to his webmail (SquirrelMail). I guess they let that one get away, likely since it was webmail.domain.com and not a known mail application. So I clicked the link to activate, retrieved the message on my Blackberry, forwarded to his email where he could open the message in a window on my computer and activate. Phew!
I completely agree with the extra security measure of making sure that the account holder is the person logging in to Salesforce. I agree with the notion that if there’s a doubt, notify the user via the email address on their account. But I wish Salesforce wouldn’t base this decision solely on IP/physical location. Guess what? That’s the point of Salesforce. We can log in from anywhere and move around.There has to be a better way of verifying that I’m me.
What about a software token (Mac compatible, of course) that one could install on a computer in a secure way that Salesforce could check for if it doesn’t recognize the IP address? That way, every time my computer is used to log on, Salesforce knows it’s me. I don’t know.
Maybe the Blackberry 9000 doesn’t want to be an iPhone killer
Posted on March 30, 2008
Filed Under Internet & Technology, Macintosh, mobility | 3 Comments
I’m beginning to drool over the upcoming Blackberry 9000, now that it seems to be a reality.
It has everything I already love about my Blackberry 8800, plus wifi, a faster network and a camera. I know that rumors also say iPhone is due for an upgrade later this year to AT&T’s faster 3G network.
Some of the Mac press refuse to see what’s attractive about the Blackberry over the iPhone, like this tidbit from MacDailyNews:
“Uh oh, RIM shareholders. If this is all RIM’s got, you guys and gals might want to quickly add “former” ahead of that suddenly scary description of one of your portfolio positions, as it’s now painfully obvious that RIM has learned nothing in the past 15 or so months since Apple unveiled the iPhone,” SteveJack writes.
“It’s the same old, same old in an iPhone-inspired wrapper. And that should fail to inspire much confidence in RIM,” SteveJack writes.
MDN is an extreme example because it’s a site where Steve Jobs can rob a bank at gunpoint and they’ll turn it around into a positive message for humanity, but it’s become typical to measure the Blackberry by an iPhone standard.
Some of us genuinely enjoy our Blackberrys for what they are, not as some sort of second fiddle to the iPhone. If I wanted an iPhone, I would have bought one. Sleek design can only take you so far.
I’m relieved that RIM is staying true to its focus on functionality first and foremost. Given a choice, I think I may still choose Blackberry when both companies roll out their new devices in a few months. When I want to use my phone to update Twitter or send an email, I’m thinking of the message, not the tool. I think the iPhone’s awkward keyboard will always be a barrier for me. We’ll see what happens when I have the opportunity to walk into an AT&T store later in the spring and (hopefully) hold both devices.
When it comes to technology, in my opinion, the best design quickly gets out of the way and doesn’t have to try too hard. This is why I still feel that the MacBook Air is an interesting proof-of-concept but will fail long term unless there is more thinking towards functionality than just being “impossibly thin.” Maybe it was impossible for a reason.
Frankly, If RIM can adapt the browser on a Blackberry to work better with “iPhone enhanced” sites, that may be all it takes for me to stick with their devices and never look back.
