NASCO Institute 2009 Handout

• Andy Wolber
  • Email andy@mnaonline.org
  • Phone 313-394-1991
  • Twitter http://www.twitter.com/awolber
  • TechGuide http://techguide.npowermichigan.org
  • Slides http://www.slideshare.net/npowermichigan
  • Bookmarks http://www.delicious.com/npowermichigan
• Introduction
  • "Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker guide to working smarter, faster, better." http://www.lifehacker.com/. Link to the book on Amazon.com: http://j.mp/4scqPx.
  • "Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working from GigaOM's Web Worker Daily." http://www.webworkerdaily.com/. Link to the book on Amazon.com: http://j.mp/4teZly.
  • URL shorteners enable link shortening (obviously). More importantly, they enable tracking: http://j.mp/
  • Resources http://www.drop.io/andywolber
• Some Basics...
  • "A Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector" http://j.mp/1d5Huz
  • Scan for viruses, spyware and malware
    • Do a complete system scan for viruses using http://housecall.trendmicro.com
  • Protect against viruses and malware
    • If you do not already have current anti-virus software, install Microsoft Security Essentials at http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/. This may be installed on all up-to-date Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 systems.
  • Configure OpenDNS.com
    • OpenDNS improves security by providing web content filtering and anti-phishing. Follow the instructions at https://www.opendns.com/start/ to configure DNS for your computer, router or DNS server.
  • Defragment your hard drive
    • Download and install Auslogics' Disk Defrag program from http://j.mp/4ofVX8. Install and use this program to defragment your hard drive. The program typically completes defragmenting your files much more quickly than Microsoft's built-in defragmentation software.
  • Backup
    • Small and mid-sized nonprofits commonly used tape or external hard drives for backup purposes. New alternatives, such as Mozy Pro (http://mozy.com/non-profit) and JungleDisk (http://www.jungledisk.com/) provide affordable, off-site, automated backup over the Internet.
  • Network Attached Storage
    • Synology (http://www.synology.com/)
    • QNAP (http://www.qnap.com/)
  • Purchasing at a discount
    • http://www.TechSoup.com/products provides discounted software (and a small amount of hardware, such as the Flip videocamera) to registered nonprofits. Be sure to check the vendor restrictions!
    • http://www.giftsinkind.org/
    • http://www.cdw.com/content/segments/nonprofit.aspx
    • http://www.ccbnonprofits.com/
  • Remote access to a computer for free:http://www.logmein.com. Note that this does require software installation and the computer to be on. (For on-the-go troubleshooting of another person computer, consider http://www.zolved.com/remote_control.)
  • http://www.getdropbox.com simplifies file syncing across multiple computers and mobile devices.
  • http://www.xmarks.com/ syncs bookmarks between browsers on multiple computers.
• Meetings
  • http://www.MeetingWizard.com/ streamlines the process of scheduling a multi-person meeting.
  • http://www.tungle.com/ enables calendar syncing, with the intent of making it simpler for others to schedule a meeting with you.
  • http://www.FreeConferenceCall.com/ provides free conference calling. The dial-in number is typically a long-distance number, so the parties involved in the conference each pay whatever long-distance fees they would typically incur by dialing that number.
  • Idealware.org provides a variety of reports of software and tools relevant to the nonprofit sector. A typical article is their "A Few Good Online Conferencing Tools" at http://j.mp/lPQnl.
  • http://www.DimDim.com/ and http://www.Yugma.com/ both provide free web conferencing tools for small groups (up to 15-20 participants). Paid versions typically support up to 50 participants at a cost of around $250 annually.
• Google Apps
  • The Google Apps Education Edition is available free if you have fewer than 3,000 users. More information on all of Google Nonprofit offerings at http://www.google.com/nonprofits/.
  • Support for setting up Google Apps is available online: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=22229&topic=22241#148995.
  • Video explanations of Google Apps can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleApps.
  • For additional tips, take a look at the book Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen.
• Website
  • Link to participating organizations' websites: http://LinkBun.ch/g8jo. Note that Linkbun.ch enables you to share a SINGLE link that opens a page with LOTS of other links. It's a great way to share a list of resources with one link.
  • Dreamhost provides free hosting for approved nonprofits (see http://j.mp/DreamhostFree). They have a very easy-to-deploy process for setting up Wordpress and several other content management systems.
  • Many small nonprofits use Paypal to accept donations. The process for setting this up is online at https://www.paypal.com/nonprofits
  • Overview of many other alternatives and resources at TechSoup: http://blog.techsoup.org/node/530. (The TechSoup blog is in transition. If this link doesn't work, see resources available about online donations at www.Idealware.org, as well.)
  • Website traffic information
    • Google Analytics provides useful information about your website traffic: http://analytics.google.com. Even better, it is free.
    • "50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics" posting at Network For Good's website: http://j.mp/21PZWL.
  • Email
    • Email remains the most effective way to drive traffic to a site. Useful analysis of email campaigns and tactics found in the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, online at http://www.e-benchmarksstudy.com/
    • Training on various online campaign strategies at http://www.fundraising123.org/training/
    • Vertical Response provides some nonprofits with free email campaign tools: http://bit.ly/4nxmHs
    • http://www.ConstantContact.com is also widely used. (They also just entered the event registration market.)
  • http://www.AllForGood.org is an aggregator of volunteer opportunities
• Social Media
  • Solid research and case studies of social media adoption from Forrester Reseach. Book is titled Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. More info here: http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell.
  • The Case Foundation resources and example site: http://j.mp/3gVTse
  • American Red Cross guide: http://j.mp/2FKJsn
  • Widely read nonprofit blogger, Beth Kanter (http://j.mp/NxTzk) posted a great video showing advanced RSS feed manipulating "Filtering Your Feeds: Marshall's Yahoo Pipes Screencast". Her main blog is at http://beth.typepad.com.
  • Twitter
    • http://www.FutureTweets.com/ enables scheduled Twittering.
    • http://www.coTweet.com/ enables multiple users and multiple accounts to use Twitter.
  • http://Ping.fm/ simplifies publishing your posts to multiple social networks.
  • http://www.posterous.com/ can aggregate postings FROM multiple sites and/or simplify posting TO multiple social media sites. It also enables simple posting from email.
  • SMS
    • http://www.Textmarks.com provides ad-supported text response or broadcast services, or paid-versions are available. Try sending "npowermi" to 41411, for example.
    • Sample of how these type of apps are evolving on campuses: http://www.mbusreloaded.com/.
  • Social media policies
    • Top 10 Guidelines: http://j.mp/HHfRa
    • Social Media Governance policy examples: http://j.mp/3z9mDS.
  • Private, Twitter-like collaboration available at http://www.yammer.com, http://www.present.ly, and http://j.mp/Socialtext.
• Databases
  • www.HelpSpot.com example software available for purchase or hosting (http://j.mp/HostedHelpSpot).
  • Low-cost, integrated membership management, event and website software as a service: http://www.WildApricot.com
  • Hosted database platform
    • http://www.SalesforceFoundation.org provides up to 10 Enterprise user licenses to nonprofit organizations for their online database service.
    • http://www.SalesforceFoundation.org/resources has links to most of the key resources you'll need to learn more or leverage Salesforce for your nonprofit.
• Mashups
  • http://www.flickr.com/map provide geographic mapping of shared photos.
  • http://www.mapalist.com takes addresses from a Google spreadsheet, then maps them using Google Maps (or Google Earth).
  • More mapping resources in this article from CNET: http://j.mp/aBoGc.
• Great resource for Web 2.0-type apps: http://go2web20.net.
• On-going resource bookmarking at http://www.delicious.com/NPowerMichigan