PICnet Blog

We PICnetters use Basecamp for project management and when we learned they had released an API and saw the interesting things people were doing with it, we thought, “hey let’s integrate”. Not because it’s cool (though the closer we get to Web 2.0 tools, the cooler we all seem here around the office), but because we saw a need, at least internally, for some extended functionality: easy time tracking and reporting.

Basecamp allows time tracking and it is very nice when checking off a task to record how many hours you spent getting it done. But sometimes we get so engrossed in our work we forget when we started. So, we built a sort of stop-watch application which allows us to punch-in, punch-out, write up a description then send it off to Basecamp.

Another pet peeve of ours is when we run over the number of hours we’ve dedicated to a project, and with several people contributing time to a project that can happen easily if the time isn’t closely monitored. So next up on the integration effort is to develop a warning system which will alert project managers when we’re nearing that limit.

(more…)

Every year we’re pleased to collaborate with our friends at Aspiration on Penguin Day, and this year Penguin Day 2007 will occur the day after the Non-Profit Technology Conference, on April 7, 2007. At Penguin Days, non-profit organizations explore the range of issues and options involved using Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS).

Fun things to check out about Penguin Day 2007:

• Main Event Page
• Agenda
• Participant List

We’re looking forward to having the same great Penguin Day that we had last year in Seattle!

In what will likely be the email heard round the NPO tech world, we just received a partner email from GetActive that states the following announcement:  Convio is buying GetActive.

While it’s too early to understand the ramifications of this for the companies’ clients and the sector as a whole, I’m rather confident that this will likely be just the beginning of a year of mergers and acquisitions in the sector.

From the letter:

I’m writing to share the exciting news that GetActive is to be acquired by Convio, Inc. This is a significant milestone for the nonprofit sector, our company, and our product. But most important of all, this is great news for our partners and clients.

I predicted the consolidation of the marketplace last year, but I didn’t think these two big hitters would be the happy couple we see today.

See the full letter after the jump.

(more…)

I’d venture to say there’s more than a few of us in the country that aren’t terribly pleased with the direction our country has been heading during the past few years. Well, now it’s time to get off that cozy couch of yours and do something about it.

And no, I don’t mean blog about it.

Take out that handy digital camera with a video mode on it, and cruise over to MySpace’s MyState of the Union. Tell the country your gripes and vision, then upload it to MySpace to have it reviewed by some DC Beltway heavy hitters, the likes of Bill Frist and John Podesta.

So even if you didn’t vote last year, here’s your chance to tell the world your vision for the country in 2007!

Our friends across the pond at the BBC have put together a very nice, concise list of best Web practices they are putting into motion to make their Web presence even better. I think there’s a lot that non-profit organizations can take from their list, especially in this Web 2.0 world we’re supposedly living in now, including:

• Treat the entire web as a creative canvas
• The very best websites do one thing really, really well
• Any website is only as good as its worst page

I think that if most organizations even took 5 of their top 15 items to heart, we’d see a more informative, clean, and organized collective Web presence in our NPO community.