Ignite Video and Slide Decks From 10NTC

Ian Rhett, Jenn Sramek and I gave our Ignite presentation on Thursday night at the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference (10NTC) hosted by NTEN in Atlanta, GA. We’ve gotten some great feedback directly and via Twitter already! The audience was fantastic, and the other presenters were really great.  Sarah Davies, the hostess and organizer did a fantastic job both organizing the event and introducing us all with a little song. Here are the videos and slide decks for each of our talks. Read some background on Ignite, and these talks Gregory Heller: “You Don’t Need A Website, You Need A Web Strategy” Ignite NTC: Gregory Heller “You Don’t Need A Website…” from GregoryH on Vimeo. “You Don’t Need A Website” Ignite NTC 2010 Gregory Heller View more presentations from Gregory Heller. Ian Rhett: Stay In The Game! Why Working For Change Matters Even When You Think It Does Not Ignite NTC: Ian Rhett “Stay In The Game!” from GregoryH on Vimeo. Stay In The Game Ignite Presentation View more presentations from Ian Rhett. Jenn Sramek: 10 Tips To Creating An RFP Process That Does Not Drive You or Your Vendors Crazy” Ignite NTC: Jenn Sramek “10 Tips To Creating an RFP Process” from GregoryH on...

CivicActions Is Going To Light Up Ignite At The #10NTC

CivicActions team members Jenn Sramek, Ian Rhett and I are all presenting at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Converence, not only in full sessions, but also during the Ignite Reception on Thursday evening from 7PM to 9PM in International Ballroom F. The Ignite format is great, originally appearing in Seattle as the brainchild of Bre Petis and Brady Forest back in 2006 and based on the Japanese presentation style called Pecha Kucha. Ignite presentations are 5 minutes long and consist of 20 slides set to auto advance every 15 seconds.  The Ignite slogan is “Enlighten us, but make it quick.” So what are we going to talk about?  Jenn Sramek’s talk is titled “10 Rules for Designing an RFP Process That Won’t Drive You or Vendors Crazy!” and will cover some important tips for people and organizations embarking on an RFP Process. Ian Rhett’s talk, “Staying in the Game: why working for change matters, even when you think it doesn’t” will present Ian’s personal philosophy of working for change. In my talk titled, “You Don’t Need a Website, You Need a Web Strategy” (ironicaly inspired by a now defunct website) I will cover the reasons and methods for developing a Web Strategy to guide your activitied on the web rather than jumping headlong into building website to keep up with the organization next door. We hope that you will join us for the Ignite Reception to hear out talks and over a dozen others!...

Getting Ready for NTEN NTC: Working With Open Source Vendors and Software

On Friday I’ll be running a session at the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) hosted by the Nonprofit Technology Entrepreneurs Network, or NTEN.  My session “Working With Open Source Software and Vendors” will feature a few panelists with different perspectives on the topic. Sarah Davies has been in charge of online communications strategy at the ACLU of Washington for three years. She has seen the effects of proprietary and open-source software on the operations and long-term budget of a nonprofit. Sarah has done consulting for many nonprofits in the Seattle area on a variety of software decisions from agile blogging platforms to robust CMS installs. David Greenberg has 25 years of experience in the application software, electronic commerce and banking industries. He was a senior consultant to Groundspring.org where he lead the product design effort for their online donation and email broadcast services, as well as the customer billing systems. Dave is now with CiviCRM and will talk from his perspective working on the development of that powerful tool. Margaux O’Malley is one of the co-founders of Grand Junction Design, a woman-owned web development shop working exclusively with progressive nonprofits. She’ll speak from her perspective providing open source software consulting and development to nonprofit clients. This session will provide an in depth look at how organizations can work with open source technology vendors to best leverage the open source technologies. While the session will focus on web Content Management Systems and Constituent Relationship Systems, many of the lessons also apply to desktop software as well.   If you have ever wondered what the benefits and potential risks of going with...