1. Using Technology to Organize: Tools to Build Websites, Databases, and Email… and more Jon Stahl jon@onenw.org www.onenw.org

2. What Kinds of Networks Are Most Important? Networks of computers? Or networks of people?

3. This is what a network looks like

4. Lay of the Land – Late 2005 75% of US homes are now online Reading news is the #1 thing people do on the web (after email) Political campaigns “discovered” the Internet in 2004 A new media ecology is emerging powered by “blogs”

5. New Tools, New Possibilities Lowering barriers to publishing and sharing information Informal “tagging” instead of taxonomies More fluid boundaries between organizations – and tools Lots more “pick ups” and “walk-ins” Pushing power to the edges of campaigns Potentially scary; lots of potential

6. The Challenges Creative campaigns that mix old and new Knitting networks of people and organizations Tools that play well together Coping with information overload Treating communications tools as core capacity building work

7. Tools We Use Website Database Email Blasting Plone Democracy in Action PayPal GiftTool ODB Salesforce.com WhatCounts Democracy in Action Sympa

8. Websites Increasing focus on: Easy to write Bite-size chunks of content, frequently updated Community/interactivity

9. plone.org ONE/Northwest’s website building tool of choice Emphasis on: Community Ease of use for non-techies Power and flexibility

10. Online Donations & Online Advocacy There’s more to online fundraising than just “click here to donate” Online advocacy is mainly a list-building tool Tools we use: PayPal Simple, but surprisingly powerful… and CHEAP. GiftTool.com A bit more expensive, but very customizable DemocracyInAction.org Online donations and e-advocacy, plus simple email blasting Powerful and inexpensive, but a little rough around the edges

11. Email Still your main lifeline to your community – it goes to them Increasingly sophisticated publishing tools Website/email newsletter integration

12. Tools we use Sympa - ONE/Northwest list hosting Discussion lists (e.g. wman@lists.onenw.org) Simple email newsletter lists no tracking, no personalization, no authoring tools http://lists.onenw.org WhatCounts More powerful, flexible HTML email newsletters Tracking, personalization, automatic import of content from your website http://www.whatcounts.com

13. “Real Time” Tools Skype – www.skype.comwww.skype.com Instant Messaging (aka “chat”) Voice-over-IP (aka “Internet Telephony”) Free & ultra-low cost voice calls to computers and to regular phones $60m revenue, just bought by eBay for ~$4.7 billion (!) Gaim – gaim.sf.net A single program that connects to all major Instant Messaging networks (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) FreeConference.com Free conference call bridging (you call in long distance)

14. Databases Still the source of tremendous pain No easy answers (yet)

15. ODB: A Good Simple Starting Point www.organizenow.net/odb ODB = Organizers’ Database Simple, easy to use, FREE Windows-only Basic donation and contact management No online tools integration Not good for multi-office organizations

16. A New Hope: Salesforce.com Heavy-duty web-based relationship management software For-profit company with an explicit social mission Free 10-user licenses to nonprofits Strong user & developer community, both commercial and non-profit Strong connections to other tools ONE/Northwest is just getting started as an implementer, should be in full swing in early 2006.

17. Avoiding Information Overload The challenge: Getting what you need without being overwhelmed by what you don’t Being able to find things you’ve seen before Sharing information with others, without extra work

18. More Tools For Finding & Managing Information Del.icio.us Collaborative web bookmarks Helps you find and share useful resources AND people http://del.icio.us (silly URL, great tool) http://del.icio.us

19. Tools We Use To Manage Information Flow RSS Feed Readers, e.g. Bloglines A great way to take in information and de- clutter your inbox www.bloglines.com Google Desktop Instant, full-text searching of your email, hard drive and network drives http://desktop.google.com

20. More Tools To Find & Manage Information CommonTimes.org Collaborative news editing Strong group functions Google News Alerts Free, keyword-driven clipping from 4500+ online news sources Can be delivered by email or by RSS http://news.google.com/

21. Getting Things Done a process lots of ways to implement www.davidco.com