Last Chance for "Choosing Blogging Software" seminar

Our Choosing Blogging Software online seminar is coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, from 1-2:30 EST. We're thrilled to have special guest Beth Kanter, superstar nonprofit blogger, who will help us to understand blogging issues and best practices in the real world. Most of our focus will be on the software: What should you look for in a tool? Which is the right one for you? We’ll talk through the features, prices, pros and cons of the seven most commonly used blog tools, including Blogger, TypePad, MovableType, WordPress, and more, look at screenshots and demos, and make recommendations for which ones might work best for you.

It's only $40, and all you'll need is a phone line and an internet browser to participate.

View more info or register>

What does Google Apps do that you can't already get for free?

Maybe I’m just slow, but the recent announcement of the free availability of Google Apps to nonprofits puzzled me. Weren’t all these apps already free to everyone? Well, a Google webinar later, I’m much enlightened. And pretty compelled.

What does Google Apps for Education (and now for nonprofits) offer that you can’t get without?

• Your own domain for Gmail. Your organizational email addresses will be at laura@yournonprofit.org, rather than laura@gmail.com.
• The ability to customize your own Google Start page. This was particularly compelling to me. You can set all the defaults for an organizational start page, which can include custom links, searches, even custom applications, which your staff can then individually customize. This seems like an interesting option for a very light “intranet” that would provide key links to staff.
• No ads. You can turn off the Google ads (interestingly, for only your full time staff, not part time, and you’re obligated to tell Google which is which)
• Phone and email support. Enough said.
• Substantial APIs . Integrate with LDAP servers to create accounts, enable single-sign-on, integrate with Outlook, etc
• Visual branding for your organizations. All the Google Apps (Gmail, Chat, Calendar, Google Start Page, Dos and Spreadsheets) can show your logo and a bit of color branding

By the way, the Google webinar was worthwhile – fairly information rich.

Update 7/23: Whoops! In fact, as Mr/ Ms Anonymous pointed out in the comments, these are the benefits that you get from Google Apps as opposed to just using the one-off applications. But in fact there's a free version of Google Apps that is available to everyone that has most of these features. The key things the Education version brings you over these is the No Ads, Phone and Email Support, and Substantial APIs - the rest of this you can get in the free version of regular Google Apps. I guess I was even more confused than I realized I was!

July articles: Affordable Advocacy, Auctions, Simple CMSs

We've got our articles for July up - including *two* new Few Good Tools articles!

Alan Rosenblatt leads the charge with a great article on Affordable New Tools for Online Advocacy. He rounds up the new generation of tools that can help organizations, regardless of their budget, reach constituents, promote applicable content in social media tools, build community, and more.

Our first Few Good Tools article is on Tools to Manage Content for Simple Sites. This is a particular favorite of mine - it's always been a pet peeve that people seem to recommend complex open source software for even the tiniest sites. That just doesn't make sense to me - or our contributors! We've summarized a number of ways that nontechnical folks can create and/or update websites that we'd recommend instead.

And then there's our Few Good Online Auction Tools article, which gives some solid advice and online platforms for nonprofits looking into the online auction realm. It's a kind of strange marketplace, with only two main vendors (eBay and cMarket), but we compare those two and talk about other options as well.

Resource Roundup 7/17

Google Announces Apps Ed Edition Now Free for Nonprofits (NTEN)
Google announces that the Google Apps package of email, documents, and calendar, plus support and APIs, is now available to nonprofits without charge.

Limitations Hinder Google Apps Premier Edition (SmallBusinessComputing.com)
Thumbnail review of Google Apps

MySpace Best Practices (DIOSA Communications)
Some good, practical suggestions to help nonprofits using MySpace to get the most value out of it

8 Really Cool Things About Plone 3 (Jon Stahl's Journal)
Plone releases a major version - version 3 - and Jon Stahl provides a detailed and useful roundup of what's new.

How to Record, Edit, and Promote Your Nonprofit's Podcast (Fundraising for Small Groups Newsletter)
Nice article about the strategy and nuts and bolts of podcasting

Using Social Networking Sites for Campaigns: An Interview with Carie Lewis, HSUS (Beth's Blog)
A nice case study about the Humane Society's use of MySpace (and a little YouTube) as part of their "Stop Canada's Cruel Seal Hunt" campaign.

Beth's Blog: Best Practices: Google Adwords and Sales Force (Salesforce via Beth's Blog)
A powerpoint presentation summarizing how the new integration between Salesforce and Google AdWords works

Wiki Reviews of Freeware (FreewareWiki)
Reviews of free software programs - mostly desktop and office productivity software - submitted by the public. The site includes dozens or hundreds of reviews, though not in a particularly understandable order.

30 free HTML email templates (CampaignMonitor)
CampaignMonitor, a bulk emailing software provider, is giving away free, browser tested HTML email newsletter templates with no strings attached. Just view the source, copy, and go. They're basic but professional looking.

Social Networking in Plain English (CommonCraft)
Another installment in the great "In Plain English" video series - this time, an introduction to social networking.

Data Integration online semnar TOMORROW (Wed)

It's getting down to the wire to register for our Data Integration Basics online seminar, which is TOMORROW, Wednesday, 7/11 from 1-2:30 EST. How do you get your various data sources to talk to each other? Will a simple export/ import procedure do the trick, or is it worth considering programmatic integration? Or should you use a software tool that will handle all you data needs in one integrated package?

I'll talk about the basic principles of data integration and various options, while Stephen Backman, founder of Database Design Associates, will join us to provide the benefit of years of practical expertise in nonprofit data integration.

Read more or register now>

Free website help for arts organizations

Is your 501(c)3 organization primarily devoted to the arts? The Center for Arts Management and Technology wants to help you create an easily updatable website.

Through their new free Content Management System (CMS) service line, qualified organizations will receive an account on one of three open source CMS platforms (DotNetNuke, Drupal or Joomla!), server space and a selection of customizable graphics templates. Arts organizations that want a more advanced online presence also will have the option of purchasing training, customization and additional storage packages.

Read more or apply on the CAMT website>

resource roundup 7/5

Rolling Your Own Online Office(Read/Write Web)
Very useful roundup of the online tools that help with collaboration tasks, such as document sharing, forums, wikis, flowcharting, and more.

Social Web 101 for Nonprofits(roots.lab)
Nice high level summary of what the Social Web - or Web 2.0 - is all about, and why nonprofits should care, directed at ED types

Why Invest in Social Features for Your Web Site? (User Interface Engineering)
Great article from one of the most respected and prominent usability gurus as to why social features are worth investing in. (Tip of the hat to roots.lab)

Project Agape and Online Democracy(TechPresident)
A nice (although slightly old now - frightening when a month-old article is notably out-of-date) overview about what Project Agape and Facebook Causes is all about, and how it might be useful to nonprofits.

Blackbaud's Future Plans (Confessions of a Non-Profit IT Director)
Allan Bennemer interviews Blackbaud's CTO and comes back with some great detail about where Blackbaud (the makers of Raiser's Edge, among other packages) is headed, particularly in relation to data openness and integration.

A Beginner's Guide To Facebook (Robin Good)
Online guru Robin Good offers a useful overview of what Facebook is, why people are using it, and how you can get started.

How Much Does Salesforce Cost? (Patrick Shaw's Weblog)
Patrick Shaw, of NPower Seattle, is one of the few who's willing to answer a general "how much does it cost?" question with something other than "it depends." Here, he provides an incredibly useful walk-through of the costs involved with implementing Salesforce.

The Outlook is Good (SmallBusinessComputing)
A review of how Microsoft's new Outlook - Outlook 2007 - compares to older versions.

Google Earth announces Nonprofit Outreach Program (Google Earth)
Organizations can now apply for grants for the Google Earth Pro program, which normally costs $400 per person per year, as well as technical support for getting started. Webware says a bit more.

Google Earth Case Study: Neighbors Against Irresponsible Logging (Google Earth)
What should you do with Google Earth? They provide a detailed case study about how one organization uses it.

Why Textpattern?(Digital Web Magazine)
A group of consultants who specialize in Textpattern - an open source blogging and small-site-CMS - explain in detail what they like about the tool.

NGO-Base-in-a-Box: Info about Open Source Office Productivity Software (NGO-in-a-box)
A collection of information and pointers to open source productivity software for running a small-to-medium sized NGO.

Google's Killer Storymapping App

The concept of "Storymapping" - applying stories, often including photographs to something like Google Maps - is getting a lot of interest in the nonprofit community. Apparently, nonprofits aren't the only folks to be interested, as Google just released an incredibly smooth integration of Picassa, their photo managing and editing software, and Google Maps. This integration makes adding your pictures and captions to Google Maps a matter of minutes.

Basically, the idea is that Google Maps has been integrated with Picasa’s Web Album functionality, allowing you to tag every picture in your Picassa online albums with a geographic location. This means that people viewing your photos have a new way to look at them: a Google Maps-based geographic view.

Using the functionality is simple – you need to be using Picasa to manage your photos, and for creating online albums. Once you’ve created an album by uploading your pictures, you view it on the web, and click ‘Map Photos’. You’ll be taken to a Google map, which can be manipulated in the usual ways. A sidebar shows all your photos, and you can just grab a photo and drop it on the map to tag it geographically. It remains there as a smaller, clickable thumbnail, and when you’re done, you click ‘Done’. There are other tools that do this, but none even approach this simplicity.

For example, my husband just posted - in about three minutes flat - a map of our 4-ballpark tour this past weekend. The pictures can now be viewed in the context of a map of the northeast, with the pictures we took appearing as thumbnails on a Google Map – with all of its native grabbing, moving, zooming, and satellite/map views. It even has a "Play" feature, which shows each of your photos one by one while zooming around the map for context.

It’s a nice new feature, and of course, it’s all built around Google’s vaguely creepy efforts to convince everyone to give them all of their data about everything. But the value that Picasa provides in combination with Google’s other offerings – first Blogger and now Google Maps – makes it a pretty attractive proposition.