Salsa Scoop

How Do We Get to a Data Standard?

 A few months ago, we wrote about (and signed onto) the "Integration Proclamation" calling for data standards to promote interoperability between tools in the nonprofit space. There's been a lot of conversation since then, on lists and off, about what that standard should look like: XML? vCard? Something new? What about the fields and the data structure? Unfortunately, in the real development of standards, these questions are so secondary that they're almost beside the point. These are discussions about data formats -- particular schemes of organizing information. But data formats are easy. The hard part about standards is the collective adoption of one format in particular. Standards don't result from clever programming or even adroit diplomacy. They result from profit-sustaining incentives that drive users and developers to the same format.  

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03:57 PM Jun 06, 2007 - 0 comments permalink

Get It While It's Hot

 The time is upon us...to buy new software. Techsoup's fiscal year ends June 30th so any purchases made before that time count towards last year's cap. The new fiscal year starts July 1st so that once again makes you eligible for donated software. You can't lose!
 

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01:19 PM Jun 06, 2007 - 1 comments permalink

DIAtribe

 ...and the winner is: DIAtribe! This submission comes to us from our Outreach Coordinator-at-large Jeanette. We're not above nepotism, and hey, thanks to everyone for your submissions.  

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11:12 AM Jun 05, 2007 - 1 comments permalink

A Month of Not Thinking About Nonprofit Tech

 High among the many compelling reasons to work for DIA, one must rank the management's willingness to let one take four weeks' vacation on the trot. Nevertheless, one does this sort of thing at one's peril, and the witticisms that have enlivened this space in my absence seem proof enough that the blog goes on. But faint heart never won fair Hefeweizen, and I have to admit that somewhere between Maidan (in a lull of the crisis du jour and under the docile occupation of a half-dozen parties' professional protester-campers) and the Hofbrauhaus, work, DIA, nonprofit tech, all disappeared gloriously into the memory hole. Feeds and newsletters and all that stuff in total stillness, with just the cool cascade of strange sights, new people, and miles of cobblestones to walk. It's not that I don't love everyone, it's just ... I don't know how to finish that sentence. Besides, travel is a form of metaphysical -- and ever-so-physical -- blogging (bear with me here, I'm trying to get a writeoff for attending Carnival).  

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06:05 PM Jun 04, 2007 - 0 comments permalink

Digital Story Telling Tips

 Below are some handy suggestions I pulled from the presentation Age of YouTube: Using Video Online to Reach the Masses which was presented at NTEN’s Technology 2007 Conference. The Serial Approach - Consider offering a series of short videos (2-3 minutes) that explain your issue, instead of making an expensive project video (or in addition to). See how I Love Mountains features short videos about the destructive practice of mountaintop removal on their homepage.  

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05:42 PM Jun 01, 2007 - 2 comments permalink

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