Gregory Heller Get in touch

Archive

2011

31 posts

  1. Using Live Video To Reach Your Audience With Google+ Or UStream

    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 .

  2. Process Vs Knowledge

    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.

  4. Unplugging and Improving Productivity As A Result

    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.

  5. Should Nonprofit Organizations Hire Zero-Gravity Thinkers?

    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.'”

  6. Lessons Of The Dancing Guy, When To Lead And When To Follow

    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” .

  7. DrupalCon Denver Session Voting Open

    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!)

  8. NTEN NTC 2012: Vote For Our Sessions

    For many years now we’ve participated in the NTEN NTC , one of the premier technology conferences for nonprofit organizations. The NTC provides an opportunity for organizations to share and learn from each other about both big picture technology issues, and nitty-gritty tips and tricks. For next year’s conference, folks from our team have proposed a number of sessions. Voting is open through September 23rd. Take a look at our session proposals, we hope that you will consider voting for them!

  9. Using Logintoboggan With CiviCRM CiviMember User Account Creation Option

    CiviMember is a powerful component of CiviCRM that allows visitors to your site to signup to become members of your organization, with or without paying a fee. If your organization also offers features for which it makes sense for your members to be users of your Drupal site, you can configure CiviMember Contribution Pages to also require (or make optional) Drupal User signup.

  10. Using CiviCRM To Manage Grants That You Receive

    Recently I worked with Grantmakers In The Arts , a national association of private and public funders making grants to artists and arts, to provide training on how they can get the most out of their CiviCRM database. In this post I am going to explain one specific bit of functionality that I helped them think through: managing grants that they receive (as opposed to give).