May 2009

Project planning and tai chi

By Steve Backman, May 30, 2009

A weekend thought about software and technology. At blogging buddy Heather Gardner-Madras’ suggestion, I’d like to return to a theme I started on earlier -- tai chi and technology planning. Doing tai chi or chi gung (qigong), it is remarkable how many design and software folks you find, part of the “walking wounded” of our high tech era. One thing these practices can help you work on is relaxing the eyes. Nothing like sitting in front of a computer screen for hours to put tension into your eyes.

There is a lot more to it. When we want to solve a problem, don’t we tend to say things like, take a hard look? “Let’s meet next week and take a hard look at our email newsletter now that we have done all that work revamping it.”

And we say, “keep a sharp eye out.” “When you meet on the web project next week, keep a sharp eye out for feature requests that will bust our launch schedule.” We focus in, we “head” in a direction and so on.

Check yourself next week. Do your eyes tense up in meetings and not just when in front of the computer?

By contrast, next time you watch Chinese or Japanese martial arts films (or those influenced by them), do an experiment. When the big fight is about to begin, look at who has the fiercest eyes and use that as a predictor of who is going to lose that round. Think Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu in the restaurant scene in Kill Bill Volume I. Watch their eyes change focus in the run-up to the mayhem. Check it out on youtube. just watched it again, and well, O-Ren Ishii is no slouch either. If the contrast isn’t so clear, check out the next scenes, facing the Crazy 88 (O-Ren’s personal army).

In Tai Chi, you practice softening your eyes as you move in order to take in more, to increase your peripheral vision. Not that I would know, but it makes sense that good peripheral vision helps when you face off with dozens of Crazy 88s at once. You neither focus so hard that you only see what is in front of your nose and ignore the context, nor turn so passive that you just receive information without being part. You learn to relax the eyes into a neutral place, so that you pay attention to everything going in and out in a more complete, holistic way.

I’m not going to compare my project meetings with facing the Crazy 88. Still, there is often a lot going on. If you mainly bring back a mess of details from a planning session, you may not be able make that synthesizing assessment the client expects from you. In software requirements planning and software selection exercises with teams of folks, I have found I do better when I take it in with a soft eye. A couple ideas:

As people contribute, pay attention to the speaker, and also take in everyone else at the table. Look around at everyone, not just in turn, but all at once. Can you take the pulse of the room as the discussion flows?

As documents and details get pulled up on screen, don’t let an entire table of people bear down on each data field or each separate component of a wireframe. You need those details –and tai chi is certainly all about working on the details!—but when you have the whole team there, ask yourself what you need to do to measure the whole effect.

During a break, try very gently massaging the front of the eyes, and let the attention of your mind also relax the back of your eyes. See if that doesn't help you to come back to the planning refreshed and able to take in more of the big picture.

Finally, a comment Steve Connell made in Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules, one of the classic books about software project management. This has always stuck with me, though I can't find the page now. He mentions that in an initial meeting about a big project, as senior architect, he sometimes finds it useful to come with no notebook. He recommends listening and looking, taking it all in, with the goal of summarizing and synthesizing the sense of the entire meeting in just one sentence only. Not a platitude, but one sentence that everyone walks away with feeling the whole strategy of the project has been captured. You cannot do that if you are taking a hard look at every feature request, every contradictory requirement that may come up. Do that over time, make sure the initial planning has the whole picture.

(ps. I study at www.brooklinetaichi.com and with www.energyarts.com)

"Listening" vs. "Asking" to Find Out What People Think

By Laura Quinn, May 28, 2009

I'm doing a bit of research of late about using online tools to find out what people think about your organization. It's an interesting area - there's a vast number of tools (many very similar to each other) that can help you monitor and listen to what people have to say online and a big body of useful best practices and case studies about how to use them. (By the way, Beth Kanter's information in this area is even more useful than her usually very useful stuff!)

I have a substantial background in research - traditional ways to find out what people think, like surveys and interviews - and I can't help but notice that there's almost nothing that I can find connecting the "online listening" area to more formal research techniques. There's got to be overlap there, right? There's likely good lessons to be shared between them in both directions.

A couple that jump to mind: I think that often formal research overlooks the idea of listening to what people say on their own without the presence of a researcher (the online world makes this so much easier), which is certainly a useful thing to do. In the other direction, I think there's too little discussion in the writings and posts in the "online listening" world of what it means that people are saying things without being asked. The stuff that they say is certainly worth hearing (and you certainly can't ignore it), but you also need to keep in mind that you're likely not getting the full picture that way. The people talking on their own are going to be the ones with strong opinions, so they're unlikely to be typical of your average constituent... if that's what you want to know.

I think this spectrum of "listening" to "asking" is a pretty useful one to consider. Both are important to find out what people think about you. In fact, add in an "informal" to "formal" axis, and you've got a nifty chart:

(By the way, this is not intended to imply that research is "best" because it sits in the typically best upper right quadrant.... this is simply the order that makes the most conceptual sense, I think)

Beyond Spreadsheets: Give reporting its due in software planning

By Steve Backman, May 28, 2009

Database Designs isn’t just about databases but I still spend a lot of time thinking and strategizing about them. Recently, I have noticed that, with some exaggeration, you could divide up much of the population of database managers into those trying to get data out of spreadsheets and those trying to get data back into them. From dust to dust, from spreadsheets in to spreadsheets out, data collection seems like burdensome toil for many. Maybe those flying closest to the sun, with large budgets and staff, truly escape, but most of us still struggle.

On the one side, no matter how powerful one’s database or CRM, administrators find themselves regularly battling users who keep their real data separately in spreadsheets. Not the official data, yet what counts day to day. At a 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference session on tech planning, a speaker commented that a good technique is to just walk around and see what users are actually using at their desk, regardless of the organization’s prioritized software systems. Yup, that struck a chord.

On the other side, in evaluating systems, its easy to focus on the processing workflow, data collection fields, interactive usability and get to “reporting” last. Under-budgeting for reporting and data exchange is an easy trap to fall into.

Absence enough attention to these things, your staff's data world may remain spreadsheet driven. Here’s some thoughts.

In software planning and selection, tie every feature discussion back to reporting. Reporting today is not just neat formatted lists and labels. It’s also spreadsheets, mailmerge, email list sync, mobile and beyond. One of the reasons I have continued to have affection for Microsoft Access is its powerful reporting system, to which its adherents then layer on additional utility over the years. If you have Office, you have a pretty useful tool at hand, even if your data sits in SQL Server or on the web in MySQL or other databases. It shouldn’t be that hard anywhere.

Salesforce has a great reporting tool once you get used to it. CiviCRM, long dogged by absence of output mechanisms, now is on the verge of addressing this. And it doesn’t have to be in big, complex systems. And definitely check out the truly smart “Smart Lists” component to Mission Research’s GiftWorks software. As a reporting tool builder, I'm envious.

Going further, staff fundamentally do not want to enter the same data twice. If they do, it’s more likely because they can’t make the actual lists they want than that important data collection fields are missing. Even if you have made sure you have the right tools, it is so easy to short time for customizing the reporting features or in training on reporting. Adding another custom field or two to a web page typically takes a lot less time than getting it into appropriate search pages or output templates. You have to consider all of it in planning for reporting. An easy way to protect yourself is to include reporting elements in each phase of a projects implementation, instead of having a giant reports phase at the end.

Third, there is life beyond spreadsheets. Some of the most exciting stuff at the 2009 NTC had to do with using free and low cost tools for visualizing data. Visualizing data can mean any framework that enables the information you want to organize come alive in context. It can be putting it on an interactive map. At the 2009 NTC, Peter Black showed some done for the Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org) such as this not-so-fun exploration of sea level rise: Or , check out Google motion charts and the work it is based on at gapminder.org.

Data visualization is a whole separate topic. I’ll just say that thinking creatively with today’s tools about visualization is also part of how to break out of the dust-to-dust, spreadsheet in to spreadsheet out framework for data , and to perhaps generate greater enthusiasm for and quality of data collection.

Incredible Websites

By Eric Leland, May 27, 2009

When comparison shopping, we have come to expect that companies will make outlandish claims about their stuff. Sometimes it's frustrating, but most of the time, I continue on numb to the distorted claims clinging to the brands all around me. For nonprofits in the business of providing a social benefit, its especially disheartening when I read similarly exaggerated claims about their accomplishments.

I see credible communication as a social benefit. Sandra Stewart, a colleague over at Thinkshift Communications, shared a beta "Credibility Quotient" to help quantify the credibility of initiatives. I found it useful as I thought about building nonprofit websites, and the kinds of messaging and communications strategies that become implicit in the architecture of the sites I build.

Thinkshift identifies several factors in determining credibility, including provable claims, accurate data, attention to challenges, relevance to the audience, consistency with actions and more. These factors and definitions show the different perspectives we can take when considering whether web content is credible, and helps to determine where to focus to fix any problems. For me, the details of the scoring and weighting are less important than the exercise in understanding what credibility factors are most important, and how to read content for these factors.

Meet the Idealware Bloggers Part 5: Michelle Murrain

By Heather Gardner..., May 27, 2009

The last installment of the Meet the Bloggers series is with Michelle Murrain. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to sit down together in person at the Nonprofit Technology Conference this year but we plan to remedy that at the next one in Atlanta.

Michelle Murrain

On Connecting Nonprofits & Technology
Michelle's work with nonprofits and technology began in parallel. Her college major was in Biology, but even then she was focused on computers and the tech end of things. At the same time she was also on the board of a Gay/Lesbian organization but didn't do technology for them because it was before nonprofits knew or cared much about the potential of technology. It wasn't until ten years later when Michelle, now a professor, was working with local women's health organization who they decided that they wanted to get on the web that it really came together. This was in the early nineties when things were very (very) expensive and even hosting was out of reach for many nonprofits. A student intern working for with them had the bright idea to set up a Linux box in Michelle's office on campus, which was connected to the internet. They set up a server in the corner of her office that the organization could get to and update their web site via phone modem. So this was the experience for Michelle marrying technology and nonprofits and also her first foray into Open Source with Linux, which at the time she installed from floppies. It was still several years after that before nonprofit technology really got established and became her focus.

On Blogging
Starting with a personal blog in 2003 to vent about Iraq war Michelle was an early adopter. In 2004 she realized that there were things to say about technology and that she had a unique perspective so she began a Typepad blog on tech. After taking a break to go to seminary in 2005-06 she started sharing her thoughts with her current blog Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology (http://www.zenofnptech.org). Then Idealware blog came along and she joined in to share her knowledge with the Idealware community.

The Magic Wand Question
One of the questions I asked in each interview was this: If you had a magic wand that could transform one aspect of nonprofit technology in an instant, what would it be and why?

One thing Michelle feels very strongly about is that Nonprofits need to get out of mindset of purchasing and buying and paying for software themselves. She would change the way they approach this and create greater collaboration on tech purchases and solutions. She feels that by working in concert nonprofits can find things that work for a broader group and at less individual organizational cost.

She offered an example. If 10 shelters got together and spent one tenth of the money they could set up a solution to case management or something and would get the same benefit at a fraction of the cost by sharing purchasing and development.

One of the real world ways funders could encourage this is by directing the nonprofits they help to find efficiencies of scale and promoting those efforts with matching funds.

The Next 5 Years
Looking forward to the next five years, Michelle is most excited by the way people are beginning to understand that things should be open. Open as in operating systems, open data and sharing openly in the social network space. Based on open standards, the idea that the data should move place to place easily is a breakthrough that is beginning to grow in all areas. In the past it has been a huge problem for nonprofits the way data has been held in silos and cut off. But she feels we are at the point now where the barriers to movement are technological not a mindset of vendor lock. There are still a few hold out but in general she see that the trend will only continue and believes that in 5 years everything will be open - source, data and standards.

Personal snapshots
First thing you launch on your computer when you boot/in the morning?
Email first, and second is twitter client

Is there a tech term or acronym that makes you giggle and why
Not really.

Favorite non-technology related thing or best non-techy skill?
Science Fiction writing, which is not yet published.

Which do you want first - Replicator, holodeck, transporter or warp drive?
Warp Drive - I want go into space and see what's out there.

Oldstyle Community Management

By Peter Campbell, May 26, 2009

Photo by ferricide

It's been a big month for Online Community Management in my circles. I attended a session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference on the subject; then, a few weeks later, ReadWriteWeb released a detailed report on the topic. I haven't read the report, but people I respect who have are speaking highly of it.

Do you run an online community? The definition is pretty sketchy, ranging from a blog with active commenters to, say, America Online. If we define an online community as a place where people share knowledge, support, and/or friendship via communication forums on web sites or via email, there are plenty of web sites, NING groups, mailing lists and AOL chat rooms that meet that criteria.

The current interest is spurred by the notion that this is the required web 2.0/3.0 direction for our organizational web sites. We've made the move to social media (as this recent report suggests); now we need to be the destination for this online interaction. I don't think that's really a given, any more than it's clear that diving into Facebook and Twitter is a good use of every nonprofit's resources. It all depends on who your constituents are and how they prefer to interact with you. But, certainly, engagement of all types (charitable, political, commercial) is expanding on the web, and most of us have an audience of supporters that we can communicate with here.

Buried deep in my techie past is a three year gig as an online community manager. It was a volunteer thing. More honestly, a hobby. In 1988, I set up a Fidonet Bulletin Board System (BBS); linked it to a number of international discussion groups (forums); and built up a healthy base of active participants.

This was before the world wide web was a household term. I ran specific software that allowed people to dial in, via modem, to my computer, and either read and type messages on line or download them into something called a "QWK reader"; read and reply off line, and then synchronize with my system later. There were about 1000 bulletin board systems within the local calling distance in San Francisco at the time. Many of them had specific topics, such as genealogy or cooking; mine was a bit more generally focused, but I appealed to birdwatchers, because I published rare bird alerts, and to people who liked to talk politics. This was during the first gulf war, and many of my friends system's were sporting American Flags (in ASCII Art), while my much more liberal board was the place to be if you were more critical of the war effort.

At the peak of activity, I averaged 200 messages a day in our main forum, and I'm pretty sure that the things that made this work apply just as much to the more sophisticated communities in play today. Those were:

Meeting a Need: There were plenty of people who desired a place to talk politics and share with a community, and there wasn't a lot of competition. The bulk of my success was offering the right thing at the right time. It's much tougher now to hang a shingle and convince people that your community will meet their needs when they have millions to choose from. How successful -- and how useful -- your community might be depends on how much of a unique need it serves.

Maintaining Focus: many of the popular bulletin boards had forums, online gaming, and downloads. My board had forums. The handful of downloads were the QWK readers and supporting software that helped people use the forums. The first time you logged on, you were subjected to a rambling bit of required reading that said, basically, "if birdwatching and chatting about the issues of the day interests you, keep on reading", and I saw numerous people hang up before getting through that, which i considered a very good thing. The ones that made it through tended to be civil and engaged by what they signed on for. By focusing more on what made for a quality discussion, as opposed to trying to attract a large, diverse crowd, my base grew much bigger than I ever imagined it would.

Tolerance and Civility: We had a few conservatives among our active callers, and that kept the conversation lively. But we had excellent manners, never resorting to personal attacks and sending lots of private messages to the contrarians supporting their involvement. We really appreciated them, and they appreciated semi-celebrity status. It was all about the arguments, not about the attitude. Mind you, this was 1989/90 -- I'm not sure if it's possible to have civil public political debates today...

Active moderation: My hobby was a full time job that I did on top of my full time job. I engaged with my callers as if they were sitting in my living room, being gracious and helpful while I participated fully in the main events. There was a little moderation required to keep the tone civil, and making the board safe for all -- particularly the ones with the minority opinions -- required having their trust that I wouldn't let any attacks get through without my response.

I think that the biggest question today is whether you should be building a community on your own, or engaging your community in the ample public places (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that they might already hang out in. In fact, I think that where you engage is a fairly moot point, what's important is that you do engage and provide a forum that helps people cope and learn about the issues that your organization is addressing. Pretty much all of the bulleted advice above will apply to your community, or out in the community.

Government Data Meets Web 2.0

By Eric Leland, May 25, 2009

I stumbled across a neat new data resource at Data.gov. Its a new initiative of the executive branch to make more public data accessible. It has a limited data set at the moment, but has a lot of tools that make the data easy to manipulate for both armchair analysts and serious researchers alike.

The datasets are easily filtered by topic and agency, by file type and/or keyword. Each detail page (such as this one tracking USA river levels) contains a very easy to read description of the data set with source information, a list of all the file types available, data dictionary, etc. There are even links to RSS feeds and embeddable widgets for your website, such as this one with emergency texts from the Centers for Disease Control:

http://www.cdc.gov/widgets/SMS/SMSReader.swf

Each dataset allows for ratings on data utility, ease of access and usefulness, as well as for general comments. While it remains to be seen whether this resource will achieve its promise, it's foundation is very appealing.

Resource Roundup 5/21

By Laura Quinn, May 21, 2009

Lots of terrific resources released recently...

eNonprofit Benchmarks Study 2009
If you're not familiar with the eNonprofit Benchmarks reports, you should be. They're fabulous, with a ton of useful benchmarks as to what you can expect in terms of email, online fundraising, and other online metrics based on actual research. They've just released the 2009 version, which has a number of new areas of exploration as well as updates on the old.

Online Seminar Series: Client and Service Management Software for Human Service Organizations
NPower Oregon is doing a really interesting series of online seminars about Client/ Service/ Case Management systems. In a five seminar series, one per week starting on June 3rd, the terrific Shawn Michael will help you identify your needs, evaluate software choices, and plan for implementation - including substantial demos of Service Point by Bowman, Client Track by DSI and Social Solutions by ETO.

Should you drop your membership amount?
As always, it depends. But M&R; will tell you what it depends on in their new whitepaper.

Social Networks for Nonprofits: Why You Should Grow Your Own
I'm leery of telling nonprofits they should develop their own social netoworks, as in my experience far more build them than succeed with them. But if you're planning on it, this report has some interesting insight and tips.

Meet the Idealware Bloggers Part 4: Eric Leland

By Heather Gardner..., May 20, 2009

Another in the Meet the Bloggers series, this one from a very fun interview with Eric Leland. As in all of the interviews, time was too short and I look forward to having more time to chat and get to know him in the future.

Eric Leland

On Connecting Nonprofits & Technology
Eric started out as a part time assistant for Amnesty International with just one computer running outreach. A lot of the work was sending out letters to student to participate, so the organization was just getting into email. Based in New York he had to travel down to DC repeatedly to fix the computer handling their email list so he jumped in to figure out why it was having so many problems. Once it was fixed he saw successful emails triple and at the same time student attendance tripled as well. Putting 2 and 2 together, Eric saw that email and online mattered more to the organization than they knew and became inspired about finding out how to work with new technologies. With no formal technology training, he built his knowledge working on the ground finding real world solutions.

On Blogging
Having started a blog years ago that was referenced as a "who to read" by Third Sector New England, Eric realized that he didn't want to pursue the demands of constant blogging and decided not to write anymore. When Laura approached him about writing for Idealware, however, he felt it made more sense to work with a whole community of authors, not for himself but to help create something bigger than any one blogger. It's an opportunity he appreciates and has enjoyed.

The Magic Wand Question
One of the questions I asked in each interview was this: If you had a magic wand that could transform one aspect of nonprofit technology in an instant, what would it be and why?

According to Eric, the NPO sector could use a large dose of pragmatic earned income strategy from for profit world, so that's where he would start. As nonprofits there is not enough emphasis on bottom line or "what's the ROI"? In the nonprofit sector we call results "outcomes" but they aren't always meaningful in practice. When you work with the smarter organizations you see that they will have metrics to help with decisions, but as with everything some are more effective than others. The effective organizations are using a more businesslike approach.

The Next 5 Years
Asked about what he finds to be the most exciting trend in nonprofit technology for the next five years Eric had a lot of enthusiasm for the way the community has started sharing best practices and lessons learned.

Eric sees a bigger trend in and more emphasis on sharing knowledge to become a better expert in their field. Some of this is due to the rise of social networks possibly, but the important thing is that now more informed individuals and organizations are sharing best practices that real people will be able to use. He feels nonprofits can really learn from each other and improve their effectiveness when they share and put things out there things like how-to's, top ten lists and toolkits.

Personal snapshots

First thing you launch on your computer when you boot/in the morning?
Email (Gmail) with Google Calendar a close second.

Is there a tech term or acronym that (still?) makes you giggle and why?
Maybe its not a giggle, but its fun to snark about "the cloud" which is a term that is to start with so amorphous and vague already , and anyway who really wants their technology in a giant ball of water?

Favorite non-technology related thing or best non-techy skill?
Best non-tech skill would be doing pottery and ceramics. Also really loves outdoor activities like surfing, but is (understandably) scared of sharks.

Which do you want first - Replicator, holodeck, transporter or warp drive?
The transporter, for those times that it is about the destination and not the journey, such as red-eye flights to the East Coast!

Getting Good Data from Informal Surveys

By Laura Quinn, May 19, 2009

I'll admit it: I'm a research geek. I really care a lot about tings that most people don't, like methods of data analysis and obscure types of bias. But that said, I also think that people should care a lot more about research methodology than they seem to. If you're going to be acting on the results of research, or particularly if you're going to conduct it, there's some basic tenants you need to know.

Take, for instance, informal surveys. There's lots of these coming out every month, and they're easy to do: slap some questions together in SurveyMonky, mail it to a discussion list, and you've got data. But not so fast. Just because you've gathered it doesn't mean it can actually tell you anything.

The main issue to keep in mind for any informal survey is response bias. If you're surveying a specific, limited population (say, only members of an organization, or people who have used your services), carefully craft your survey and approach, ensure you only get one response from each person, and 50-60% of everyone you try to survey responds, you might not have to worry about response rate. Otherwise, it's a huge concern. And yes, that's almost every survey that mere mortals might do.

Response bias means that your data is skewed towards those who chose to answer your survey - typically, those more emotionally invested or interested by your topic. It means that your data doesn't represent any larger population, but only those who choose to answer.

Let's say I want to find out about pizza. I put together a survey, and send it out to few mailing lists with a note "Please take our pizza survey!" A few days later, I tally the data, and amazingly, it turns out that everyone loves pizza as much as I do. 90% of everyone loves pizza! I've discovered a new trend! But no. This is an example of response bias. What I've actually found out is that 90% of people who were motivated to fill out survey about pizza like pizza. A lot less interesting, huh? Those who don't care abut pizza or thought it was inane to do a survey about it or didn't feel like they knew much about pizza didn't respond at all.

Importantly, it doesn't matter how many people I get to fill out the survey. I could get a million people to fill it out and it would be exactly as biased. My 90% figure would still be fatally flawed.

But even though my survey is biased towards those interested in pizza, I could still get some interesting data. I could, for instance, gather some data about toppings - it would be unscientific but interesting to find out that 20% of my respondents enjoy peperoni, while only 10% enjoy mushrooms on their pizza. I wouldn't bet the farm on this data - there's no way to be certain that the lists I posted the survey to aren't somehow skewed towards peperoni lovers, or followed diligently by a peperoni lobbyist who stacked my results - but it's certainly not fatally flawed in the same way.

So what does this all mean? Some tips:

Be suspicious of sweeping demographic conclusions that have been reached based on anything but big, carefully designed studies
Look for the methodology. Any reputable survey should give a sense of who they reached out to, including some ballpark number of people and a sense of the response rate.
Useful surveys are hard to design. Please find someone who can help design a process that will provide reasonable data. Bad data can be more than useless - it can be misleading.