Aspiration Events History

This collaborative three-day gathering is designed for everyone from grassroots activists to software developers, bringing together participants from around the world to share knowledge, build relationships, and collectively envision the future of free and open technology to support social change.

Join us for a collaborative training designed to help nonprofits coordinate their online communications and make sense of using different online tools like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

The training will be conversational and feature opportunities to get your questions answered about online communications. It is ideal for anyone trying to juggle all the different online tools for their organization and those interested in new tools.

The agenda will be driven by the participants but will likely include sessions on "Intro to Blogging", "Social Networks for Organizing" or "Building a Publishing Matrix to Coordinate Your Online Channels."

Come with your stories, doubts, and questions! The training is small and suitable for all skill levels so reserve your spot today because space is limited.

When?
Friday, July 1, 2011
12:30 - 4:30 pm

The Central Valley eAdvocacy Program is generously funded by the California Consumer Protection Foundation. Big thanks to CMC in Sacramento for their great support and the Nonprofit Innovation Center for providing the event space.

Thanks to everyone who attended the May 17 Modesto training, Starting Your Nonprofit on Social Media, as part of the Central Valley eAdvocacy Program.

We hope you found the training useful and now have a better understanding of using different online tools for your organization.

The following are the materials used during the training.

These materials are distributed under a Creative Commons license, and we encourage re-use, modification, and re-distribution in any situation where they may be useful.

• Training Introduction
• Spectrums of Engagement
• Build A Publishing Matrix
• Publishing Matrix Template
• Introduction to Facebook
• Introduction to Twitter

We will continue to create discussions and feature opportunities to get your questions answered about online communications. Any feedback is much appreciated!

The Central Valley eAdvocacy Program is generously funded by the California Consumer Protection Foundation. Big thanks to Congregations Building Community for their great support and El Concilio for providing the event space.

Learn about Free and Open Source for nonprofits!

Penguin Day returned to Washington DC right after the 2011 NTC. We got to collaborate with lots of friends, old and new alike at the Josephine Butler Parks Center.

Penguin Days are designed to let nonprofits and social justice activists learn about free and open source software that can support their work and potentially save them money, including tools for web publishing, fundraising, blogging, and campaigning.

Sessions included...

• Introduction to Free and Open Source Software
• Making sense of Free and Open Source Content Management Systems
• Participating in Free and Open Source Communities
• Introduction to Blogging with Wordpress
• Introduction to Free and Open Source Desktop Applications
• Free Culture, Creative Commons And Open Content
• Managing Constituents with CiviCRM
• Mozilla Drumbeat and the Open Web

<

p>Penguin Day DC 2011 was organized by Aspiration and PICnet.

It was a great day and we hope to see lots of you at the next one!

We're excited to be partnering with Department of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco for SF-IM Summit 2011, aka “New Tools for the Public Good” On Saturday, March 5, 2011, from 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM.

The Aspiration team will facilitate sessions that include “Facebook and Twitter 101”, "Intro to blogging", "Beginning and Intermediate WordPress”, “Listening Online with a Social Media Dashboard”, “Managing Online Channels with a Publishing Matrix”, and “How to Build a Good Nonprofit Web Site for Almost Nothing.”

The theme of SF-IM is using social media and other emerging technologies for the public good. Sessions will feature opportunities for discussion and hands-on learning. Importantly, the focus of SF-IM is on peer-to-peer learning and conversation, not tech-talk and PowerPoints. SF-IM’s programming is ideal for anyone interested the public possibilities of the emerging media technologies, and is suitable for a wide range of abilities, from beginner to advanced.

Big thanks and love bombs to TechSoup Global for inviting us to design and run their 2011 Contributors' Summit earlier this month. The event brought together an amazing bunch of folks from over 40 countries, for collaborative discussions on topics ranging from disaster response and accessibility to cloud computing and the future of philanthropy.

Check out the Day 1 and Day 2 blog posts from the amazing Beth Kanter.

February 2nd, 2011 2pm-4pm

Many nonprofits have no idea how their online messages are propagating and what is being said about them online. This hands-on, learner-driven event allowed participants to set up their own "listening dashboard" where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (websites, blogs, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all from a single free online space. Participants used the free Netvibes tool to create their dashboards.

The following are the materials used during the training.

These materials are distributed under a Creative Commons license, and we encourage re-use, modification, and re-distribution in any situation where they may be useful.

• Training Slides
• Listening Matrix

January 14th, 2011 2pm-4pm

As options for online engagement proliferate, many nonprofits find it confusing to manage and effectively coordinate organizational messages and campaigns. This training gave nonprofits who are starting out in social media and online communications a framework in which to look at different communications channels as effective for organizational goals. In this hands-on workshop, participants put together actual tools that they can use as an organization to inform and structure processes surrounding how, when and why to use the mind-numbing plethora of social media outlets, blogs and communications channels.

This training also gave participants a structure in which to think of these channels so that it is no longer a huge array of strangely-named tools to learn. Rather, a selection of tools for an organization to choose from to achieve broader organizational goals.

The following are the materials used during the training.

These materials are distributed under a Creative Commons license, and we encourage re-use, modification, and re-distribution in any situation where they may be useful

• Training Overview
• Spectrums of Engagement
• Publishing Matrix Walkthrough

The 2010 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Oakland, California was a smashing, sold-out success!

Check out:

• Full Event Agenda and Schedule
• The latest Session Slate by Thematic Area.
• We heartily thank all our Agenda Partners!

A big love bomb of thanks to all who joined us for this high-spirited, fully-interactive festival of folks who are passionate about developing software tools to support the work of social change organizations and community activists.

You can also check out the proceedings from the 2009, 2008, and 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summits.

Fresh off the fun of the Peer 2 Peer University Open Assessment Workshop, we were delighted to partner with P2PU again to design and run their annual global community workshop.

Taking place before the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival and Open Ed 2010 conference, the workshop provided a venue for the P2PU community leadership to take stock of growth and successes of the past year, while also addressing issues of governance, community, sustainability and of course learning.

The Peer 2 Peer University is a grassroots education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU provides the social environment necessary for meaningful learning and mechanisms for validation of achieved learning. P2PU is teaching and learning by peers for peers and it is run and governed by volunteers. We are grateful to work with them as they rethink education in the online context.

In the latest chapter of our ongoing collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace, we traveled to DC to run the first-ever Open Simulation Platform Conference.

The Open Simulation Platform is a new and state-of-the-art open source learning platform for teaching conflict resolution. Based on an interactive role-playing paradigm, the platform lets instructors author multi-user role-playing simulations and then run them in synchronous or asynchronous learning environments. This disruptive technology will provide an open alternative to expensive and proprietary simulation tools which have historically been the norm in the field.

The event was structured as a simulation authoring sprint, with a dozen sims created over the course of 3 fun and collaborative days of work.

We had a blast collaborating with USIP, Partners for Democratic Change and Positive Relating to pull the event together. And we look forward to OSPCon II in 2011!

The LearnPhilanthropy Symposium brought together invited leaders from across the country who represent the stakeholder organizations in grantmaker education and learning, ranging from the learners themselves to those who develop, provide, present, or invest in grantmaker education.

We were excited to be part of the amazing team that planned and facilitated the event.

The LearnPhilanthropy Initiative is bringing people together to create a stronger, more rational, and less fragmented system for grantmaker learning than exists today -- one that builds a new culture of professional development in the field, works better for the individual learners involved in philanthropy, and better for the many groups and organizations that provide learning programs and resources. Aspiration is providing technology leadership as the project continues into its second phase.

Building on the event model developed at Drumbeat Berlin and Drumbeat Toronto, we headed south to Sao Paulo, epicenter to a rising and internationalist digital culture full of optimism and energy, to partake of the building Mozilla Drumbeat momentum in Brazil.

Partnering with Casa da Cultura Digital, we co-designed and delivered a full-day training for 30 Drumbeat Local organizers in Brazil, followed the next day by Drumbeat Sao Paulo. Both events were facilitated in Portuguese, with translation handled masterfully by our local partners.

Many thanks to our local hosts for incredible hospitality and collaborative fun!

Aspiration traveled to Austin to run a 3-day Design Camp that culminated Mozilla's Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge. Ten projects from the Challenge were invited to the Camp, which took place prior to South By Southwest Interactive 2010. Aspiration designed and led the event in partnership with Mozilla, along with Philipp Schmidt, Jetpack for Learning (JFL) Coordinator, and Brian King and Andy Edmonds, JFL Course Leads.

The camp brought together developers, designers, and educators who are connecting the best ideas from open education with the coolest new open internet technologies. Design Challenge prototypes were finalized with support from the course leaders, and additional agenda time was spent discussing and working toward a shared vision for social learning in the open web. Selection and announcement of ultimate Design Challenge winner took place during Mozilla's SXSW Interactive event.

In addition to enhancing the ten great Jetpack for Learning projects, the Design Camp had several additional objectives:

• Strengthen the community of practice among practitioners working in the Jetpack for Learning space;
• Engage in visioning and collaboration around the future of open web technologies in the context of education;
• Address participant questions and learning needs regarding all aspects of Jetpack and Firefox development.

If you are interested in being more effective with your use of social media in 2010, attending one of these two events will be a great way to build some momentum.

Each seminar is entitled "Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard", and will be held at two times:

• Wednesday, February 3rd from 2pm to 4pm
• Thursday, February 4th from 2pm to 4pm

The goal of the workshops is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their messaging.

These hands-on, learner-driven events will allow participants to set up their own "listening dashboard" where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all with a single free online tool. Participants will use the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.

The workshops are designed for those starting out in social media as well as those who have established a social media presence but don't know how to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity around their programmatic issue areas.

Because the workshops will be participant-driven, we'll encourage discussion amongst the group, so bring your stories, questions and frustrations and we'll see if we can sift out some answers and solutions.

Slides from the presentation can be found here: http://www.aspirationtech.org/files/BuildingYourOwnSMDashboard.pdf

If you are interested in being more effective with your use of social media in 2010, this event is a great way to start off the year with momentum.

The seminar is entitled "Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard", and will be held on

Friday, January 8th from 2pm to 3:30pm

The goal of the workshop is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their messaging.

This hands-on, learner-driven event will allow participants to set up their own "listening dashboard" where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all with a single free online tool. Participants will use the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.

The workshop is designed for those starting out in social media as well as those who have established a social media presence but don't know how to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity around their programmatic issue areas.

Because the workshop will be participant-driven, we'll encourage discussion amongst the group, so bring your stories, questions and frustrations and we'll see if we can sift out some answers and solutions.

Aspiration traveled to the Philippines to co-organize Asia Source 3 (AS3). The event was a six-day hands-on workshop aimed at building the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) technical skills of those working with NGOs in South and South East Asia. It took place at Silang, Cavite, Philippines from November 7th to 12th, 2009.

The event was co-organized in partnership with The International Open Source Network (IOSN) ASEAN+3, Centre for Internet and Society, and Tactical Technology Collective, with support from Mozilla Foundation, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, InWEnt Capacity Building International, ASEAN Foundation, and Open Society Institute Information Program.

AS3 was the third event of the Asia Source camp series. Asia Source I was held in Bangalore, India in 2005 and Asia Source II in Sukabumi, Indonesia in 2007. The 6-day collaborative event was held on the lush greens and in the quiet cool environs of the Yen Center, home to the Headquarters and Regional Center for Asia of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), and located in Silang, a landlocked municipality south of Metro Manila, within the historic Province of Cavite.

In the tradition of previous camps, Asia Source 3 brought in participants from across Asia, who shared the common goal of pursuing FOSS advocacy and its promotion and use among non-profit organizations, small-to-medium enterprises and youth networks. The primary objective of the event was to act as a focal point in increasing the practical uptake of F/OSS desktop and tools amongst the voluntary sector in South and South East Asia.

Aspiration was honored and delighted to co-organize Innovation on the Lake, in partnership with Common Ground. The event brought together a group of 15 Ashoka Fellows along with experienced practitioners in social media and technological innovation for an interactive weekend on Lake Como. The three-day gathering was generously supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and took place at their Bellagio Center in Northern Italy.

The goal of the event was to help Ashoka grantees explore how they might apply social media strategies and tactics to support their respective projects in Africa, Asia, India, South America and the US, working on issues including human trafficking, climate change, rural development, government corruption, micro-lending and homelessness. The focus was on generating ideas and solutions to the specific problems that each of the attending Fellows work on and how their social change work can be accelerated with the use of innovative communications technologies. Each participant was invited to consider innovative ways in which to design and introduce network production models (aka "crowdsourcing") into their programmatic work.

A team of experienced social media practitioners facilitated sessions on a range of topics. The team gave generously of their time and passions in service to the Fellows, and included:

• Amy Sample Ward, Global Community Builder for NetSquared
• Anna Maybank, Coordinator of The Social Innovation Camp
• David Taylor, Online Director for Rainforest Action Network
• Dwayne Spradlin, President and Chief Executive Officer of InnoCentive, Inc.
• Lena Zuniga, Crocodyl Project Lead at Corpwatch and co-founder of Sula Batsu
• Nicholas Reville, Executive Director and co-founder of Participatory Culture Foundation
• Skylar Woodward, Lead API Developer for Kiva

The agenda was collaboratively designed by the participants and facilitators using Aspiration’s participatory event methodology.

Bellagio was a beautiful event venue, and meetings there have generated important social policy ideas for 60 years. Rockefeller generously provided the resources necessary to convene a productive and transformative event.

Ashoka is an international network of social innovators. Fellows are vetted through an exhaustive process designed to validate the scalability of their innovations. Each of the Fellows in attendance had been nominated by Ashoka as either already using interactive media tools as the platform for their social innovation, or eager to explore the potential of these tools for their work.

Aspiration thanks Rosanne Haggerty at Common Ground for inviting us into such a fruitful and collaborative project, and we hope to create similar events in the future.

Join us for hands-on learner-driven Social Media lessons

As part of Mozilla Service Week, Aspiration and the San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center will be hosting an afternoon of open learning labs we're calling the Social Media Sewing Circle.

The goal is to help nonprofit staff both learn about social media, and just as importantly, learn how to track and assess the impact of their social media efforts.

This hands-on event will enable participants to explore:

• Social Media Tracking: How to assess the reach and impact of your social media efforts
• Publishing strategies for social media channels: how to make it all make sense together
• Facebook and Twitter essentials, including setup, core skills, etiquette, and best practices
• Beginning and advanced blogging skills, including basic concepts, blog setup, publicity strategies, and search engine optimization
• Any questions you have about the relevance of social media in your work

The Social Media Sewing Circle will take place on

Tuesday, September 15th from 1pm to 4pm

at the

San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center
1370 Mission Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415.839.6456

This is a free and open event, but space is limited, so please RSVP to info@aspirationtech.org.

We invite anyone who's curious about enhancing their social media skills and knowledge to join us for this hands-on learning event.

Aspiration and Community IT Innovators (CITI) hosted the third Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Washington DC on the 22nd and 23rd of July.

Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects DC examined the tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions - whether it be websites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications.

You can check out the event agenda and the list of excellent facilitators. As with all Aspiration events, participants were encouraged to add sessions to the agenda.

Interactive sessions and demos allowed participants to compare processes, tools, successes, and lessons learned. Discussion topics included team collaboration, project planning, software selection, migration, and project rollout, and mapping out software tools – from project management packages to collaborative communication to issue tracking and more – that support successful technology projects.

Feel free to join the MNTP discussion list, which we use to discuss MNTP-related topics.

Aspiration’s skill in facilitating practitioner knowledge combined with CITI's experience in managing nonprofit technology projects contributed to an informal, collaborative, and information-rich event.

What Are They Saying?

The feedback from our previous MNTP events was roundly enthusiastic. Just a few of the comments from participants:

• "The event was very energizing, and renewed my enthusiasm for tackling some complex issues"
• "This gathering will inform everything I do in IT from here on."
• "I used to be super intimidated - now I feel more empowered about what I do know and how to find answers to what I don't"
• "It was a fun, casual, open, responsive learning environment for non-techies"
• "I learned that I'm not alone, and I can learn from a rich community of people facing similar challenges"
• "I was impressed with all that happened - it was amazing"

What are the Goals?

MNTP DC had three primary goals:

• To strengthen the community of practice among those who identify themselves as nonprofit technology project managers
• To enhance the knowledge and capacity of technology project managers within a rich, sharing environment
• To map out the range of tools and best practices being employed in nonprofit technology project management

Participants exchanged project management tools and techniques that they can apply to the management of many projects, and discuss project management processes – from project initiation to project planning, project execution, monitoring and control, to project closure – in the context of stories and experiences. Participants inventoried resources and best practices for nonprofit IT project management, ranging from templates to trainings, and shared useful software packages as they are used in actual nonprofits.

Significant time was spent discussing appropriate practices and processes for defining requirements in nonprofit software projects to inform the "build, buy, or rent" decisions that vex nonprofit technology managers on a regular basis.

Who Came?

MNTP DC was focused on the growing community of nonprofit technology project managers, aiming to provide support to those practicing as project managers, while also recruiting and offering support to those new to (or bewildered by) this craft, and creating a space for the “accidental project managers” to share their stories, discover their allies, and grow into more “intentional” project managers. A significant part of the event was built around mentoring relationships; experienced individuals with knowledge and stories to share collaborated with participants who wanted to learn more.

Participants were encouraged to bring real-world projects to MNTP, and vet them with some real-time project management, coaching, and assessment.

What was on the Agenda?

The agenda was designed specifically to ensure participants interact with and learn from each other, while also providing solid grounding in essential topics. The following workshops were included in the proceedings:

• Nonprofit Technology Project Management 101: For those who self-identify as new to the discipline, this session provided an overview of nonprofit technology project management. Essential topics, truths, and tools were presented, with the second half of the session employing a question-driven format.
• Anatomy of a Well-Managed Technology Project: Drawing from case studies good, bad and ugly, this session focused on key aspects of successful project management. The primary take-away was guidelines on how project managers can maintain control of their projects.
• Designing and Redesigning Web Sites: Any nonprofit that has published a web site understands the frustrating nature of the process. This session considered how best to take on the task of casting organizational identity on the web while also serving target audiences and delivering value to web visitors accordingly.
• What Should a Web Site Cost? One of the most vexing questions in any project is “what are appropriate costs for technology and labor?” This session utilized anecdotal data and participant input to explore costing for different types of web sites, from simple “brochure-ware” sites to custom, database-backed applications and points in between.
• Mapping Communication Tools to Tasks: There are a range of ways to collaborate with partners and stakeholders in any project. But which tools work best for which types of collaboration? This session will sort out appropriate times to employ email, instant messaging and chat, wikis, phone calls, file sharing, forums and other tools.
• Using Wikis for Effective Collaboration: Over the past several years, wikis have demonstrated their value as a key tool in certain project management processes. This session mapped out best practices and techniques for successfully utilizing wiki technology for project collaboration. Also discussed was when not to use wikis, and when more structured information sharing tools are advisable.
• Managing Nonprofit Software Development Projects: While a best practice for nonprofits technologists is to try and utilize existing tools and services, there are invariably times when the appropriate tools and applications don’t exist. But software development is not a core competency of most nonprofits, and too often nonprofit software development efforts spiral out of control or end in less-than-complete realization of vision. This session will explore how best to get from concept to running code with out losing focus on mission.
• Managing Consultants and Dealing with Vendors: This peer sharing workshop invited participants to compare their processes and tactics for managing critical project relationships that fall outside of organizational boundaries.
• Horrific Tales of Miserable Project Management Failure: Nothing is more instructive than the mistakes of others. Participants will be invited to swap stories and cautionary tales of the many speed bumps, pot holes, and multi-vehicles pile-ups on the road to project management success.
• A Whirlwind Discussion of Project Management Software Utilities: This fast-paced session allowed participants to share the various project management utilities available, including time tracking, task management, source code control, and more.
• Software Share: Basecamp, MS Project, DreamTeam and more – Nonprofit practitioners provided a variety of 10-15 minute software demos to allow participants to see the packages in real-life situations and compare the strengths and weaknesses.

Want more information?

Contact us at info@aspirationtech.org.

Aspiration brought together some of our brightest and most passionate eAdvocacy allies to lay down the content for the Online Organizer's Almanac, a comprehensive volume about online advocacy, eActivism, and internet-based organizing.

The almanac was written at a 5-day Book Sprint in San Francisco. The authors collaborated both in person and remotely, nonstop from a Monday morning to a Friday evening to create these materials. The content was assembled on the FLOSSManuals.net platform, a collaborative online environment for authoring open documentation and manuals.

<

p>Understanding online tools, tactics and technologies is an ongoing learning challenge for all activists and organizers. The Almanac was written for what are lovingly called the "Accidental Online Organizers", those individuals who as a result of happenstance, fate, passion or an advanced ability to type have found themselves tasked with selecting, implementing and/or learning to use online tools to campaign and advocate.

<

p>The Almanac is an attempt to capture and contextualize the best practices the authors believe in based on our trials and errors, successes and failures. It represents the collected learnings from working both individually and together over many years, exploring how the internet can be effectively and sustainably utilized to support activists and movements in the struggles for social change and social justice.

The authoring team included:

<

ul>

Aspiration was honored and delighted to direct the festivities at Joomla! Day West 2008, held at Google Headquarters. The event focused on building knowledge about Joomla!, a GPL-licensed content management system which is proving increasingly popular for publishing nonprofit web sites.

The event brought together members of the Joomla! core development team, the Open Source Matters team, and almost 100 members of the Joomla! community to talk about all things Joomla!, including the upcoming 1.6 release, template and extension design, and plenty of participant-driven sessions. Aspiration employed our open licensed, collaborative event methodology to drive a fast-paced agenda focused on knowledge sharing, interactivity and community building.

Aspiration and Idealware hosted the second Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Oakland, California.

Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects examined the tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions - whether websites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications.

Interactive sessions and demos allowed a diverse group of participants to compare processes, tools, successes, and lessons learned. Discussion topics included team collaboration, project planning, software selection, migration, and project rollout, and mapping out software tools – from project management packages to collaborative communication to issue tracking and more – that support successful technology projects.

You can check out the agenda and session notes on the MNTP Wiki

And feel free to join the MNTP discussion list, which we're be using to continue the dialog.

Aspiration’s skill in facilitating practitioner knowledge combined with Idealware’s experience in providing mental frameworks and research based information contributed to an informal, collaborative, and information-rich event.

What Are They Saying?

The feedback from our New York Project Management event was equally enthusiastic. Just a few of the comments from participants:

• "The event was very energizing, and renewed my enthusiasm for tackling some complex issues"
• "This gathering will inform everything I do in IT from here on."
• "I used to be super intimidated - now I feel more empowered about what I do know and how to find answers to what I don't"
• "It was a fun, casual, open, responsive learning environment for non-techies"
• "I learned that I'm not alone, and I can learn from a rich community of people facing similar challenges"
• "I was impressed with all that happened - it was amazing"

What were the Goals?

MNTP had three primary goals:

• To strengthen the community of practice among those who identify themselves as nonprofit technology project managers
• To enhance the knowledge and capacity of technology project managers within a rich, sharing environment
• To map out the range of tools and best practices being employed in nonprofit technology project management

Participants exchanged project management tools and techniques that they could apply to the management of many projects, and discussed project management processes – from project initiation to project planning, project execution, monitoring and control, to project closure – in the context of stories and experiences. Participants inventoried resources and best practices for nonprofit IT project management, ranging from templates to trainings, and showed useful software packages as they are used in actual nonprofits.

Significant time was spent discussing appropriate practices and processes for defining requirements in nonprofit software projects to inform the "build, buy, or rent" decisions that vex nonprofit technology managers on a regular basis.

Who Came?

MNTP focused on the growing community of nonprofit technology project managers by providing support to those practicing as project managers, recruiting and offering support to those new to (or bewildered by) this craft, and creating a space for the "accidental project managers" to share their stories, discover their allies, and grow into more "intentional" project managers. A significant part of the event was built around mentoring relationships; experienced individuals with knowledge and stories to share collaborated with participants who wanted to learn more.

Participants were encouraged to bring real-world projects to MNTP, and were met with some real-time project management, coaching, and assessment.

What was on the Agenda?

The agenda was designed specifically to ensure participants interacted with and learned from each other, while also providing solid grounding in essential topics. The following workshops were included in the proceedings:

• Nonprofit Technology Project Management 101: For those who self-identify as new to the discipline, this session provided an overview of nonprofit technology project management. Essential topics, truths, and tools were presented, with the second half of the session employing a question-driven format.
• Anatomy of a Well-Managed Technology Project: Drawing from case studies good, bad and ugly, this session focused on key aspects of successful project management. The primary take-away was guidelines on how project managers can maintain control of their projects.
• Designing and Redesigning Web Sites: Any nonprofit that has published a web site understands the frustrating nature of the process. This session considered how best to take on the task of casting organizational identity on the web while also serving target audiences and delivering value to web visitors accordingly.
• What Should a Web Site Cost? One of the most vexing questions in any project is “what are appropriate costs for technology and labor?” This session utilized anecdotal data and participant input to explore costing for different types of web sites, from simple “brochure-ware” sites to custom, database-backed applications and points in between.
• Mapping Communication Tools to Tasks: There are a range of ways to collaborate with partners and stakeholders in any project. But which tools work best for which types of collaboration? This session will sort out appropriate times to employ email, instant messaging and chat, wikis, phone calls, file sharing, forums and other tools.
• Using Wikis for Effective Collaboration: Over the past several years, wikis have demonstrated their value as a key tool in certain project management processes. This session mapped out best practices and techniques for successfully utilizing wiki technology for project collaboration. Also discussed was when not to use wikis, and when more structured information sharing tools are advisable.
• Selecting and Recommending Tools – The Idealware Process: Laura Quinn described the Idealware methodology for gathering collective software knowledge in specific software categories, as well as their approach to assessing tools and evaluating appropriate uses. Case studies detailed past tool reports, and participants work through key steps in the Idealware process, in a software category decided by the group in the session.
• Managing Nonprofit Software Development Projects: While a best practice for nonprofits technologists is to try and utilize existing tools and services, there are invariably times when the appropriate tools and applications don't exist. But software development is not a core competency of most nonprofits, and too often nonprofit software development efforts spiral out of control or end in less-than-complete realization of vision. This session will explore how best to get from concept to running code with out losing focus on mission.
• Managing Consultants and Dealing with Vendors: This peer sharing workshop invited participants to compare their processes and tactics for managing critical project relationships that fall outside of organizational boundaries.
• Horrific Tales of Miserable Project Management Failure: Nothing is more instructive than the mistakes of others. Participants will be invited to swap stories and cautionary tales of the many speed bumps, pot holes, and multi-vehicles pile-ups on the road to project management success.
• A Whirlwind Discussion of Project Management Software Utilities: This fast-paced session allowed participants to share the various project management utilities available, including time tracking, task management, source code control, and more.
• Software Share: Basecamp, MS Project, DreamTeam and more – Nonprofit practitioners provided a variety of 10-15 minute software demos to allow participants to see the packages in real-life situations and compare the strengths and weaknesses.

Stay informed about key dates and registration information by signing up for our low-volume announcements list

Help to shape the agenda and focus by joining the agenda discussion list.

Want more information?

Contact us at info@aspirationtech.org.

Aspiration designed and hosted the first-ever “Open Translation Tools Convergence”. This 3-day event brought together two passionate communities: those creating open source software tools to support translating open content, and those with a need for better tools to support translation of the open content they create.

Aspiration published a paper entitled "Open Translation Tools: Disruptive Potential to Broaden Access to Knowledge", documenting learnings and outcomes from the event. In addition, a video and inventory of open translation tools were also produced.

The event took place in Zagreb, Croatia, from 29 November to 1 December 2007, and was co-organized by Aspiration and Multimedia Institute - [MI2]. Open Translation Tools 2007 was supported by the generosity of the Open Society Institute, with additional support provided by TechSoup.

The event was convened to:

• Document the open source translation tool landscape - What's out there? And what should we create to fill the gaps?
• Inventory “open content translation use cases” - What translation support is needed?
• Strengthen the community of practice around open source translation tools for open content, with a particular focus on delivering value to nonprofit and non-governmental organizations (NPOs and NGOs).

The agenda was collaboratively developed by participants in the time leading up to and during the gathering. Also see additional event background.

Overall, we followed a user-driven approach to map tools to use cases, assessing what is supported by currently available open source software tools and services, and identifying the most pressing needs. Primary focus was placed on supporting and enabling distributed human translation of content, but the role of machine translation was also considered. “Open content” encompasses a range of resource types, from books to manuals to documents to blog posts to multimedia.

The event targeted three complementary outcomes:

• A mapping of the open source translation tool landscape, enumerating tools and tool categories as well as services, projects and resources, and assessing gaps and opportunities for development. There is currently very little in terms of a directory of translation tools for content publishers, and this event will serve to create such an inventory.
• An inventory of “open content translation use cases”, with open content creators and publishers describing how they would like open source software tools and technologies to support their translation needs. These use cases will cover a range of tasks (“I need to translate a document into a second language”) and usage scenarios (“I need a widget for my blog that links to open content translation request services and lists available translated versions of my content”).
• A strengthened community of practice around translation tools for open content for NPO and NGO needs. While many amazing projects are in play all around the globe, there are relatively few opportunities for practitioners in the field of open content translation to meet and collaborate as a community. Open Translation Tools 2007 will provide such a venue.

For more information, email info@aspirationtech.org or call +1.415.839.6456.

Aspiration and Blue Oxen Associates co-hosted the fifth FLOSS Usability Sprint November 2-4, 2007. FLOSS Usability alums Daniel Schwartz and Jon Slenk stepped up to lead the event planning, outreach and logistics. Once again, Google graciously hosted the event at their headquarters in Mountain View. Project participants included Firefox, Chandler, and WiserEarth.

"FLOSS" stands for Free/Libre/Open Source Software, and at FLOSS Usability Sprints, open source software projects partner with usability practitioners to address specific usability challenges in the software tools they are creating. Each team identifies usability outcomes they want to achieve during the course of the 3-day sprint, then collaboratively designs and implements processes for realizing the stated outcomes.

At the invitation of IDRC and in partnership with PRIDE Africa, Aspiration directed the first-ever “Good to Great FOSS: Open Source Software Development in Africa” convening in Nairobi from October 24-26. The workshop provided a collaborative venue for discussion on Open Source software development in a developing country context, and was attended by a diverse group of open source projects and practitioners. The workshop goal was to facilitate an open assessment on how ‘Open Source’ approaches do (and do not) improve the impact of software initiatives in a developing country context. Also discussed and documented were reflections on the most successful approaches and strategy to implementing Open Source.

Participating projects included AVOIR, DrumNet, OpenMRS, Grameen Mifos and TradeNet.

The main objectives of this workshop were:

• To provide an opportunity for reflection and learning about how to develop successful Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) initiatives in Africa;
• To promote collaboration and understanding of what it takes to have a successful FOSS project;
• To document community processes and tool sets of featured projects, profiling best practices required to apply FOSS expertise to add value to various technology driven IDRC-funded projects;
• To provide knowledge on business process in the context of FOSS projects.

Following from the event, Aspiration will be authoring a paper that details community processes and tool sets of featured projects from the event; a profile of best practices, required resources and processes in the developing country context; as well as points of disagreement on the subject of how to develop an Open Source project in the African context; and finally, recommendations for focus areas in future support and collaboration.

Aspiration hosted our annual eAdvocacy shindig, which we lovingly named the "eAdvocacy Jamboree", from July 17-20 at Preservation Park in Oakland. The main event ran July 18-20, with a pre-day of eAdvocacy trainings on July 17 for those wanting to ramp up their eAdvocacy skills.

Electric Embers also hosted their third annual Most Excellent AdvocacyDev Veggie-Friendly BBQ Shindig, continuing to raise the bar for NPTech hospitality!

The final agenda is online. We continued to expand the format this year, and offered several interleaved tracks:

• Training Fest: A full day of in-depth trainings was offered on Tuesday the 17th, before the main Jamboree, on a range of topics including eAdvocacy 101, Web 2.0 Tools and Tactics, eAdvocacy Best Practices, Strategic Blogging, Intro and Advanced sessions on Democracy in Action, CiviCRM, Non-Profit Soapbox, Drupal, and Joomla.
• Interactive Track: participants were able to workshop their current campaigns with facilitators and other participants, participate in peer web site reviews, brainstorm new campaign ideas, and engage in skillshares on any topic they wanted to discuss. Spectators were few and far between!
• Strategy Track - Tools, Tactics and Best Practices: eOrganizers and eAdvocacy practitioners from a broad base of causes and sectors discussed what they've got in their toolboxes and the tactics and strategies they're currently employing. Sessions considered the challenges of messaging and maintaining supporter bases across campaigns. A particular focus was on developing best practices in eCampaiging process and engagement models. Participants also related how they're using emerging web 2.0 and other technologies to augment their eAdvocacy efforts. User/Developer sessions allowed stakeholders across the eAdvocacy landscape to discuss how we can all work together more effectively.
• Developer Track - Open Source eAdvocacy Platforms: Where are we, what's new, and how will it all interoperate? We continued the dialog from past AdvocacyDev convergences and looked for more opportunities to write tools that make life easier for campaigners and organizers. Latest releases of all relevant platforms were demo'd and compared, and participants were invited to drink from the fountain of cool technology Koolaid.
• eAdvocacy Capacity Track - Addressing the Challenge: The most consistently vexing problem in the eAdvocacy space is how to develop more capacity. Campaigns and causes go wanting for able staff and consultants who could help them craft and execute appropriate online campaigns and strategies. This track mapped what's already being done in terms of training and documentation, while opening up the floor for discussion on how better to scale eAdvocacy communities of practice and pool various documentation resources.

As always, participant input dramatically shaped what happened at the event.

Event partners who worked with Aspiration to design the agenda and sessions included Blue Oxen Associates, Caltha.pl (Warsaw, Poland), Change.org, CiviCRM, CivicSpace, DemocracyInAction, Drupal, Joomla!, MobileVoter, New Organizing Institute, Non-Profit Soapbox/PICnet, Protest.net, and Radical Designs.

iCommons and The Shuttleworth Foundation invited Aspiration to co-design and lead facilitation of the Open Education Track at the 2007 iSummit. The track was designed as a loosely integrated collection of sessions with a common focus on how to bring the commons model and philosophy into education. Sessions used participatory, interactive methods to support a shared conversation and convergence amongst people with a passion for open education. The sessions provided a space to showcase emerging open education initiatives and to explore ways to better create, share and evolve open educational materials.

Aspiration convened a number of open data platforms to discuss how such technologies could better interoperate. Purple Wiki, Wagn, Wiser Earth, Craigslist Foundation, Radical Designs AMP, and Social Source Commons shared their respective data models and information architectures, and brainstormed use cases for the how the various platforms might share data.

Aspiration and Blue Oxen Associates co-hosted the fourth FLOSS Usability Sprint March 9-11, 2007. Once again, Google graciously hosted the event at their headquarters in Mountain View. Project participants included Firefox, Drupal, WiserEarth, and Aspiration's own Social Source Commons.

The Sunlight Foundation invited Aspiration to design and facilitate the agenda for their first-ever Open(Data)/Open[Gov] meeting. The event, co-hosted by the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, brought together a diverse group of 60 practitioners focused on various aspects of making government data more open to citizens. The group spent the day wrestling with the challenges and opportunities facing activists and technologists working to open up and demystify publicly available data for the average web users. Sessions addressed how to create successful developer networks, how to facilitate open exchange between Congress and citizens, and a look at various APIs, microformats and possible mashups. Also addressed were gaps in existing data sets, sustainable business models for this type of work, and the unintended consequences of transparency.

Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy curriculum back on the road to nonprofits in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The two-day “Web Sites For Advocacy and Community Organizing: Basics, Essentials, and Best Practices” training covers web essentials, development process, design essentials, developing web strategy, as well as best practices for privacy, and security. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using email in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs, and funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California. All materials are being distributed under Creative Commons license.

Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy curriculum on the road to nonprofits all over California for a week of trainings in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. The one-day “Email For Advocacy and Community Organizing: Basics, Essentials, and Best Practices” training covers email campaigns, how to write effective email campaign messages, tracking open rates and responses, how to manage and sustain email lists, as well as best practices for privacy, security, and avoiding “spammer” status. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using email in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs and ScoutSeven, and funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California. All materials are being distributed under Creative Commons license.

The Innovation Funders Network 2006 Summit took place in San Francisco on January 30th & 31st. Aspiration was honored and delighted to direct the agenda and oversee event facilitation.

The event convened funders, invited affiliate organizations and thought leaders from around the world at Wharton West in San Francisco to explore the role of innovation and networks in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Over 100 participants, coming from a range of perspectives and experiences, discussed challenges and opportunities across the fast-changing landscape of innovation funding.

Over the past decade, the emergence of the internet, cellular phones and other innovations in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) has brought about profound social and economic change. We are now living in a networked society. These networks provide new ways to collaborate, express ourselves politically and culturally, address social and economic issues, and build local and global communities. The event addressed a range of topics, including:

• the use of ICTs in recent humanitarian relief efforts, online advocacy, community Internet, telecentres and community technology centers.
• innovative uses of networks to deliver social and humanitarian services, advocate policy positions, communicate with constituents and the media, build collaborations and raise funds.
• How do we ensure access? How do we equitably distribute benefits enabled by these networks? How do we foster innovation communities within the social sectors? How do we scale these innovations across issue areas and geographic regions?
• different funding models including traditional and corporate philanthropy, social venture, peer to peer investing, online fundraising, microfinance. We will explore the use of these networks to foster collaboration amongst funders.

Aspiration and Green Media Toolshed convened a working session of global activists, communications staff, technology experts, and foundation staff to mine a wide variety of experience, expertise and vision. The goal of the MobileActive was to explore the power of the cell phone as an organizing and campaign communication tool with leading activists from all over the world; to share knowledge, stories, and strategies; and accelerate the use of cell phones as a successful tool in campaigns, human rights efforts and field organizing. Activists from across the world including Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, India, the Ukraine, and the Americas participated in the first-of-its-kind event.

At the invitation of IDRC and Telecentre.org, Aspiration trained other facilitators in key elements of the event facilitation methodology that Aspiration has developed for nonprofit technology gatherings such as Developer Convergences, sprints, Source Camps, and Penguin Days. Particular emphasis was placed on exploring how the Aspiration approach can be used to build or strengthen collaborative networks, and to lay the foundation for concrete online and offline post-event collaboration, through the effective use of wikis and other online tools used to produce documentation in real time during face to face events. The workshops also provided a springboard for telecentre.org and IDRC planning processes and the development of a ‘facilitation for networks’ methodology which has since been used to organize other events.

The first west coast Penguin Day, co-organized by Aspiration and CompuMentor, was held in Oakland and brought nonprofit staff, eRiders, and open source practitioners and developers together for fun, dialog and skill-sharing. A particular focus of this Penguin Day was the role free and open source software plays in hardware recycling, with sessions offered by FreeGeek, Technology Rescue, and Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation (HOSEF). Other sessions addressed CRM solutions for nonprofits, eAdvocacy tools, open content, and yet another round of madcap “Speed Geeking”

Aspiration is organizing a track of 14 sessions and clinics on technology innovation in the nonprofit sector at the NTEN National Technology Conference in Chicago.

The NTC is the largest nonprofit tech conference and aimed at IT staff in nonprofits and the people supporting nonprofits and their IT needs. The Aspiration Innovation Track at the NTC will focus on these themes:

1. Project/Risk Management: How to you choose software? How do you manage IT projects in your organization? How do you decide whether to build/buy/or bend? How to you manage risk?
2. Innovation Slams: Learn about tools while having some fun! Partake in Aspiration's famous SpeedGeeks and clinics;
3. Free and Open Source Software--cheaper, better, faster software tools and development for nonprofits? Why is open source innovative? How do you leverage f/oss for nonprofit organizations?
4. What’s next for nonprofit technology and software innovation? What's up and coming that NPO techies should be aware of? What do we need to realize the potential of IT for our organizations?

Sessions include: Blogs and RSS, Content Management with Open Source Software, and Successful Project Management of Web Development Projects, to name just a few.

Clinics and speed geeks feature security tools, blogging, taming your website with a CMS, and using Linux in your organization.

Please contact us at info at aspirationtech dot org if you are interested in participating in this track or like to see specific topics covered in the sessions.

We and the designated session designer welcome your input, ideas, and suggestions for this series!

Aspiration designed the agenda and facilitated this convergence of developer and users of the ActionApps web publishing platform, who traveled from all over the world to discuss the vision and direction for the platform, and plan for capacity building and sustainability of their open source community. Focus areas including training materials development, support for online advocacy features, multi-lingual web sites, and hands-on skillshares. The content management system (CMS) landscape was mapped and discussed, and user survey results were presented.

The first Advocacy Developers Convergence brought together developers and allies focused on internet advocacy software. The convergence yielded a valuable and popular web resource (wiki.advocacydev.org) that continues to grow in popularity, has led several projects to merge efforts and share code, and has generated several new projects, including an open database initiative for shared data standards, an Open Source Almanac for nonprofits, a localization working group, and applications from the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and SMS (Short Message Services) sprint events.