During our first blog week devoted to industrial online communication I interviewed Joe Taylor, one of the pioneers in web sites and e-newsletters for process engineers and manufacturers of process equipment.

In discussing how his web sites have helped form a sense of community among his regular visitors, I asked him if any of his regulars had sought to further the community spirit. He replied:

"Some of the regulars have suggested that we should build a tree house or start a club. There is a feeling among process engineers dealing with bulk solids that they don't have a way to congregate with their peers. There is no professional society focused on their field. Who knows, maybe a blog could help serve that end."

The idea took hold, and Joe continued to call to talk about it from time to time. Finally, a couple months ago Joe said he was going to build that tree house and asked if I would help. The PowderandBulk.com blog was launched July 18.

Joe wanted to host the blog on his own server. He chose Movable Type from six apart because he wanted to buy a commercial package that offered support. We've found the software reasonably easy to setup, and except for the lack of a rich text editor, the user interface is friendly and intuitive. Joe found a great rich text editor plug in at FCKeditor, an open source HTML editor that offers the most editing features I've ever seen in one of these tools.

Joe has just begun furnishing his new tree house. He's in the process of recruiting contributors, which I know from experience here at IAOC takes some persistent missionary work.

In IAOC's first industry blog week, Todd Van Hoosear noted that blogging has been slow to develop among engineers, with the exception of software engineering.

In our second industry blog week, Paul Gerbino, publisher of ThomasNet Industrial Newsroom and the Industrial Market Trends blog asked the question, are blogs and wikis viable industrial business models or simply light conversation over drinks at a social gathering? 
Paul proceeded to demonstrate over the week how blogs and wikis are already serious tools for serious players.

Most non-profits or volunteer associations share the same set of issues from a workflow perspective. They don't office together, they frequently move on and off of various committees and Boards, they have lots of notes and minutes resulting from each live meeting, they have turnover of committees members and chairs and need to keep consistency of documents and process from year to year, Chair to Chair.

In 2002, I was the committee chair for the Professional Development committee for our local Colorado Chapter of PRSA. Each time I needed an expense reimbursement form or even something as simple as a printed phone list, I had to have last year's Chair email it to me. Ridiculous. When my company bid to build out a redesign of PRSA Colorado.com later that year, I insisted that we include password-protected "Committee Back-rooms." Each committee had one and could login directly from the website using a simple rotating password. All minutes, notes, files, invoices, expenses, anything...could be stored as documents. Anytime something was uploaded, everyone on the Committee was notified via email. When I finished my year as Chair, I simply passed the torch to the next Chair with a brief tutorial about usage of the back room (intranet).

We've been able to do this very inexpensively for many of our non-profit clients. Goodwill Colorado is using it here as a Member's portal. There is a link directly from the home page for any credentialed member to login to view "members-only" collateral.

Sungate, a child's advocacy organization that fills a very important role in prosecuting child abusers, and often has sensitive law enforcement information, also uses the system quite effectively. Police and court officers can login securely and send the Sungate counselors documents via the Login button on the home page.

These simple intranet solutions can be found from a variety of vendors and should cost the organization between $100-300 per month on a subscription basis. I will list several including the links at the end of this post.

Online collaboration is critical in a volunteer-based organization due to geographic disparity, rapid turnover of personnel and the record-keeping required to satisfy laws that govern non-profits.

Intranets.com

RelationsCentral review in EContent Magazine

Intranet Journal Magazine...a great research resource

When working with non-profit organizations, it's important to follow your heart because without exception, they all need our help. Even though you're doing business, you will find yourself over-committing and over-giving your time and resources naturally.

Multiple Sclerosis is an awful disease and for some reason its occurrence is significantly higher here in Colorado. They've not identified why. Also, twice as many women get it as men. Overall a mystifying disease.

So these young guys approached us earlier in the year and said they needed a website that could take donations because they were going to hike The Colorado Trail and give the money to MS. Why? Because one of them had been diagnosed with it at the age of 22.

We did it...for nothing. Here's their website and their effort, which is underway as we speak.

Good, inexpensive technology is sometimes all you need. These young men spread their message exclusively online, using viral email communications alone. Their story was then picked up by Denver's KCNC Channel 4 (CBS) picked up on the story and now they're raking in the donations.

This kind of success story wasn't possible without a budget before the Internet and online communications.  

One of the biggest needs we've discovered among our non-profit clients, and one of the simplest solutions to implement...single event ...   more »

One of the biggest technology issues for most non-profit organizations is the capture and management of data. To an organization that is constantly challenged for financial and human resources; the most important asset they have is their data. I'll use a high-profile example. We met several times in early 2003 with the Denver Chapter of Susan G. Komen's "Race for the Cure." They were searching for a new web vendor and we did a great deal of due diligence with them in creating a proposal. (we didn't end up winning the business).

Each year for the last decade, as one of the largest "Race for the Cure" events held across the nation with more than 60,000 runners annually, the Denver Chapter would have a monstrous challenge on their hands. Here were some of their challenges:

1. Disparate data locations. The Executive Director had the list of past race participants on her hard drive at the office. The Volunteer Chair had the list of volunteers on her laptop. The Board Chair had the list of donors on his hard drive and the National office had the only copy of any "survivors" that had participated. Indeed a mess. Answer? A master database tied to their front-end website for proper capture at the point of registration.

2. No web access. None of the hard-working staff, whether paid or volunteer, had access to the data unless they were on their own computer. Answer? The master database is housed on one server location. Any "authorized" user has access via a web connection and proper login.

3. No online collaboration. This one drove them nuts. They were using college interns and volunteers to sort through forms and postcards and event posters and race bib numbers, etc. Each area was working in a complete vacuum. Answer? The master database is tied to an intranet solution that allows "all" authorized team members to see all race-related collateral in one location. The material can be updated, downloaded, printed, delivered via email, etc. and all actions are traceable and accountable to the other members of the team.

4. No cross-referencing of data. Probably the worst evil. A decade of history...hundreds of thousands of race entries and donors and volunteers. No way to cross-reference anything. All of the form fields were in place on the race form...did you run last year? Are you a cancer survivor? Have you ever donated besides this race? Are you/have you ever been a volunteer, etc. But that data capture was not making it into a master database because there wasn't one. Answer? All registrations moving forward must be done online, either by participant or by volunteer upon receipt by mail. All historical data (lots of man hours to get it up to speed) is input into the master database as best can be. All data can then be crossed.

5. No content management of website. They were beholden to an unresponsive web group that they had to pay for each update. When I met with them in February of '03, their website was still showing event information from the October '02 race. Answer? A content management system that is tied to the master database and the intranet.

In other words, a comprehensive web-based communications system to capture, control, manage and monitor DATA. No matter the cost, it would save them immeasurable man hours and capture immeasurable lost donations. As a donor to the cause, I know they've done better since then by outsourcing their donations management here. But as budgets are always a challenge, I have a sense that they haven't tackled the internal issues completely yet.

 

 

When my two business partners and I first started The Fuel Team in early 2003, we had some noble goals.

1. As seasoned, veteran marketing communications professionals, all three of us wanted to "apply our experience" to helping non-profits.

2. As owners of a proprietary software platform, we wanted to "leverage our technology" to help non-profits.

3. As contributors to several non-profits on an individual basis, we all wanted to "organize our giving" into a more cohesive and effective effort. 

As a small marketing firm, we focused our efforts on small-medium-sized independents or Colorado-based Chapters of larger, nationals. As we began to develop our client base, we came to several key realizations.

1. Our solutions had to be incentive or commission-based. Real ROI had to be demonstrated. Our ability to get paid for our efforts was largely dependent upon our ability to either raise or save the organization money.  

2. Any technology introduced had to be extremely simple and easy to use. Resources and man-hours are extremely thin in these organizations.

3. Technology could actually alter the demographic profile of the organizations' contributors.

Throughout this week, we'll share some case studies and examples of how we've been successful and some lessons that we've learned. We encourage your comments and your questions here at IAOC Blog.

 

The AuthorViews Tour has finished its first leg. On July 7, I rolled into Bellingham, Washington, home of cameraman and tech guru, Jesse Vohs. I'll be working and playing in Bellingham for the next three weeks before the AuthorViews Tour resumes with a West Coast swing. As online communicators, you might want to learn a little about Jesse Vohs; he may be your worst nightmare. You see, Jesse Vohs is a hacker.   more »

The AuthorViews Tour rolls into Fort Collins, Colorado, where Steve O'Keefe interviews authors Pat Hartman and Tim Van Schmidt about writing, eBay, and independence.   more »

How do you think people will communicate most comfortably or most often five years from now? Ten years? Twenty years? This is not just a theoretical question, but one with incredible financial repercussions, as communications facilitators such as telephone companies, cable television companies, motion picture producers, and publishers place their bets.   more »