Notes from N-TEN‘s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference.
Session on cool new stuff with Katrin and Ami.
Ami says that technology moves forward in spurts. I remember thinking in the 90’s how fast things were changing. My mind boggled at where we might go. But it stopped around 2000. Ami is saying there’s a new spurt of creativity.
Continue reading “Ami & Katrin, part 1”
Esther Dyson’s keynote speech is being done in the format of an interview with Andrew Blau. Having seen her speak once before, I think this format led to more disjointed thought and less big picture, but I’m guessing this was done because Esther just fishished running her own conference, PC Forum.
Somehow Rob Stuart coaxed about 10 of us into a limo (I think that part was an accident) for the “12 minute” trip to Rosa’s, his favorite place in Chicago. This place is all blues, all the time. The band is decent and sporting a Japanese piano player (which doesn’t sound any different but the mixture of ethnicities of stage is unusual).
A few weak souls already caught a cab home, and I will stick it out for at least one more drink, but I have to send invites for a party I’m hosting before I go to bed tonight. The days are just packed, I tell you.
I’m really glad that Kaliya was paying enough attention to write about what was wrong with the Microsoft guy speaking over lunch at the NTC today. I was one of the hundreds of people who signaled my appreciation for Microsoft by talking loudly all the way through the (very poorly designed) presentation.
Her bottom line on the security guy: can’t trust him.
I appreciate all the money they gave to help sponsor this excellent conference, but the big commercial was un-called-for and probably not that helpful to anyone either.
The session on Civic Space and CiviCRM is dimly lit by the glow of the computer screens. I know about Civic Space and I’m interested in maybe using it on www.OrangePolitics.org sometime in the distant future. But I haven’t heard about the CRM (constituent relationship management) thing, which is something we’re looking for at work to manage an internal contact database.
Continue reading “Getting things done with open source”
I plan to pay a lot of attention to this “distributed activism” panel since I have to lead a similar session next week!
Continue reading “Network centricity”
Talking about those stupid phones with cameras, so I had to use mine…
I enjoyed eating lunch with some of the brilliant minds of Beaconfire Consulting. I geeked out with Tim of fiercefamilies.org who also reminded me of CSS Zen Garden, which is an excellent site demonstrating the power and beauty of style sheets.
I went to a session about “persuasive storytelling: sharpening your message.” It sounded interesting, but it turned out to be about writing proposals to foundations. Six of us jumped up and left when we hard it was about fundraising. Now I’m watching an “extreme website makeover.”
I’m in a session on how to do effective trainings now. They started by showing how NOT to do it, which was pretty funny.
New word for the day: “androgogy” = adult learning.
Continue reading “Training on training”