With this week's announcement that Blackbaud will buy Convio there have been many questions whether this will be good or bad for the nonprofit organizations both companies count as their clients. We have often had clients and other nonprofit organizations we come into contact with us ask about the open source tools we specialize in, and how they compare with the proprietary tools or Software as a Service offerings that they've heard about. One very clear difference is that the open source tools don't get bought up and consolidated.

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At the end of 2009 when the Obama Administration came out with the Open Government Directive (which I wrote about at the time) I had some conversations with other consultants and thinkers in the nonprofit technology world about the idea of an "Open Nonprofit Directive" that would, in many ways, mirror the OGD.

Two years have passed, and in the prognostications for the year ahead I've seen a number of references to "opening up" and increasing transparency in the nonprofit sector. Once again I am left thinking it is time for an Open Nonprofit Directive.

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Why do so many organizations waste the opportunity to hook their email subscribers with the first line of the email message? I hadn't really noticed this sooner because of the way I consumed email: through a series of complicated email aliases and gmail filters.  Honestly, in Gmail, I was basically ignoring most solicited bulk email (organization email lists). But since I've been taking a first look at my email through my iPhone and iPad using the iOS mail app, I've begun to notice this shocking fact.

Here are some facts about viewing email via the iOS mail app:

• Approximately 35 to 40 characters of a subject are displayed
• Approximately 100 characters from the top of the email message are displayed

Two lines at 50 characters, and a subject of 35 to 40 characters. That's basically a Tweet.  And that (plus the "from" name) is all you have to get your reader's attention and convince them to open the email message and read on.

Why do so many emails waste this space with something like:

• "Click to view this email in a browser" (37 characters)
• "Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser." (64 characters)
• "If you're having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online." (68 characters)
• "Web version | Edit your subscription | Unsubscribe" (55 characters)

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I think that most organizations are a little bit afraid of video. And if they are a little bit afraid of video they are even more afraid of live video.  Video, the conventional wisdom goes, is expensive and hard to produce. Your chances of doing it wrong are higher than of doing it right, and either way the cost and time involved is probably out of reach. Live video, well that is just crazy talk! Anything could happen!

As we all know, the cost of video cameras has come way down, the once much heralded inexpensive Flip camera is now obsolute because of smartphones with high quality video cameras! And editing technology has also become cheaper and easier. For years now every Mac has shipped with iMovie, but today you can edit video with a range of online services including YouTube.

Video engages people. How many times a day do you want a few minutes of video on the web? That clip from the Daily Show, a segment from the local news, something on YouTube (perhaps involving a cute animal) a friend posted to Facebook? Or maybe you were glued to live streaming of the #occupy demonstrations this fall?

How can nonprofit organizations make use of video easily, and without great expense, to connect with their audiences? My, perhaps counter intuitive answer, is through live streaming. Yes, jump in on the deep end.  With live streaming video there is no post production necessary, just a camera and an internet connection. UStream has garnered much press because of the #occupy movements and it is a great platform, scales well, offers some good tools, but it also requires a bit more setup than, say, Google+ Hangouts.  

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I recently saw the wonderful documentary, Eames: The Architect & The Painter, and if you are a fan of the furniture, films or other design of Ray and Charles Eames like I am, you have to see this film when it comes to your town, or becomes available via DVD or some streaming service. Even if you are not obsessed with the work of the amazing couple, you have certainly been exposed to it, and I think we all can learn from the example they set.

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If you've been feeling like more people have smart phones than don't, you are pretty close to being right.

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Perhaps it is just the end of the year approaching, and we are all getting a bit reflective, and thinking ahead to New Year's Resolutions, or maybe something larger is happening.

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Yesterday I wrote about a recent study suggesting that millions of baby boomers want to start their own nonprofit organizations or social ventures. This morning I returned to a tab opened in my browser a day or two ago, an article on the Harvard Business Review blog, "Don't let What You Know Limit What You Imagine."  I'd highly encourage reading it, but for now I will draw some connections between it and my post yesterday.

The author, Bill Taylor, references a book by Cynthia Barton Rabe, The Innovation Killer, in which she talks about how experience in a field can become a detriment to innovation and success. Her answer is that organizations should hire "zero-gravity thinkers," innovators "who are not weighed down by the expertise of a team, its politics, or 'the way things have always been done.'"

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Today I was reminded of the Derek Sivers TED talk "How To Start A Movement" in which he analyzes a popular YouTube video of a guy dancing on a hillside at music festival. What reminded me of this video, and its lessons was an opinion piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, "Calling All Boomers: Don't Start More Nonprofits". 

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We are excited to present a wide range of session proposals for the upcoming DrupalCon Denver. If you take a look at the proposals our team members you will see that there is a little something for everyone, from very technical sessions, to sessions on using Drupal for Mobile applications, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations using Drupal, and how to use Agile not only to run your projects but also to run your organization.

These sessions are born out of our experience and expertise on these topics, as well as our passion to share what we know with the community.

Take a few minutes to look over the proposals and cast your vote. We hope to see you at DrupalCon Denver, and empower you and your organization with one of these excellent sessions.

• Occupy Drupal
• International NGOs Leveraging Drupal For Social Change
• Zen and The Art of Estimating
• How To Architect For Drupal
• Using Agile Software Development Methodologies To manage Your Organization
• Do It With Scrum
• Create Your Community: Social Archiving And Participatory Culture
• Drupal Base Your Next Mobile App
• A Very Large International NGO Case Study (the NGO will be announced soon!)

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