Hundreds of non-profit technologists and management met in Chicago from March 23-25, 2005, for the annual Non-Profit Technology Conference.  This is the second time PICnet has attended the conference, and one in the many of series of conference in which founder Ryan Ozimek presented two sessions: Online Publishing with Open Source Content Management Systems and Watering the Grassroots: Using Online Advocacy Tools.

"The NTC has proven to be the conference for those serious about technology in the non-profit sector," said Ozimek. "This year's conference was one of the best ever, bringing together groups and individuals from around the world to discuss the important technology matters at hand."

Some of the most interesting dicussions didn't happen in the sessions.  In the hallways and in the lobby bar late at night, groups of individuals could be found discussing some of the issues they're often only able to discuss online.  One grouping, which steadily grew a crowd after the end of the Friday sessions, was led by Democracy in Action's Chris Lundberg, in which the role of mission-based technology providers versus for-profit (or not-for-much-profit) vendors was brought to the debate.

Additionally, word slowly spread through the conference of new tools and different technology standards that were coming into play.  On the tools front, the emergence of PICnet's Soapbox integrating with the Democracy in Action toolset, slowly came to light, while at the same time CivicSpace and its integration with CivicCRM was discussed in its own session.