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Emily Shaftel was my point-of-contact at CSPC and she was an amazing coordinator for their side. I always received a quick turnaround, clear and detailed questions and she was very technically savvy with an eye for pushing the website to its limits. She actually departed CSPC on the day of the launch to go and volunteer for a year in Thailand! Emily definitely made an impact before her departure.
This project reinforced some valuable lessons for me: 1) Sometimes it’s the little things 2) “By your powers combined” (thanks to Captain Planet for this valuable wisdom) At PICnet, we aren’t just about creating snazzy new websites with sleek design and fancy features. We’re also here to help with your website’s basic needs, like in the case of Port Jobs. We recently worked with Port Jobs’ database contractor to automate Microsoft Access reporting to display current job postings in near-real time on their Airport Jobs site. Port Jobs chose us after a competitive bid process in which they considered several firms. Our functionality and a previous relationship with the business favored us in the selection process. But the database revamping is only Phase I – we will now be working on redeveloping Port Jobs in Soapbox, under the same template. Although this is a rare example, the project was fairly smooth in part because I already understood how their old database was set up – because I had created it when I was an employee with Port Jobs. This made it a lot easier to understand the goal of the database integration, and the limitations and opportunities moving from the current ASP driven site to Soapbox. In the end, this prior knowledge proved fruitful in a great solution for the client.
KIPP NYC is an organization focused on results and results it has shown. Over its lifetime, it can consistently grown to educate more students from low-income families and give them a true opportunity to seek higher education. Their programs have extended from kindergarten to college prep, all supported by a dedicated staff of dynamic teachers. These programs have helped 95% of students score at or higher than the state average in math, 93% of students to finish high school, and 86% of graduates go to college. In December, PICnet launched a brand new website for the organization, encasing information on various programs, a professional design, and multimedia on staff and students. It consolidated information from several websites on different programs onto one universal and streamlined site. Some key components of the project:
KIPP NYC is on track to having 50% of their graduates finish college in 6 years in the next two years. The organization’s goal is to strengthen and expand their programs so that 75% of their graduates complete their college degree, compared to national average of 10% for low-income communities. If you would like to learn more or support these students and teachers in their endeavor, please visit them on the web at http://www.kippnyc.org/.
The new site is informative and engaging, with aggressive integration through Democracy In Action for events, campaigns, and eNewsletter sign-up and templates. It also includes liberal use of WuFoo custom forms for robust online grant and fellowship applications. One final cool feature is a Google Map integration displaying more than 100 charter schools in New York that links to more details and content within the site and to the individual schools’ websites. Are you thinking about revamping your website but not sure where to start? Are you working with a web developer but wonder if you’re paying too much? With all the tools and strategies available, it’s hard to know where to start and what to expect. Attend this free webinar on Thursday where Allen Gunn, Executive Director of Aspiration (one of our partners!), will share valuable information about:
This will be a basic-to-intermediate level overview of the website development process and ideal for decision makers, board members involved in the process, and accidental techies. The webinar is this Thursday, the 17th, at 11am PST. You can join here.
There are few events where I get such a great opportunity to meet key individuals in the community, and learn as much hands-on information, and this year’s Dev Summit came through once again. The event was held in Oakland, Calif. from Nov. 18-20, attended by non-profit software developers, evangelists, and technology users. I was fortunate to speak with Nate Aune from Jazkarta and share stories about building successful businesses around open-source software and the non-profit sector. I also had a chance to engage in discussions with Michelle Murrain of OpenIssues, who shared her thoughts on the open-source CMS landscape for the non-profit sector. Ron Severdia, a member of the Joomla! leadership team, also spoke to the group about design principles and the upcoming Joomla 1.6 user interface. There were so many more great folks there that I want to give shout outs to, but there is so little time to say thanks to all of them! Aside from hearing from some of these great people, I spoke on a number of key topics, including open-source CMSs, utilizing cloud services, the Joomla! project, and open-source business models that could support our sector. I was most impressed by the terrific feedback and engagement in the open-source business models session, where participants helped share lessons learned and best practices in achieving success while also building sound business models. You can visit the event wiki to see all the great notes taken during the sessions. Conference dates: September 12; 14 In September, I had the great opportunity to attend two different conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and once again, both were amazing experiences. First up, I went to Joomla!Day Brazil to meet up with Joomla! enthusiasts from a wide range of backgrounds, businesses, the government and nonprofits. I was especially excited to meet Paulino Michelazzo, the president of Fabrica Livre, an open source consulting firm in Sao Paulo. Similar to what I said in my keynote speech for Joomla!Day South Africa, I gave an update to conference attendees on Joomla! leadership and the drive toward increased transparency in open source matters, and I shared lessons learned from outside the Brazilian community. And then I had the opportunity to learn from the experiences of NGOs in Brazil and how they use Joomla! It’s pretty cool to hear about all the various ways that this software is being utilized around the world. A couple of days later, I attended DevinRio, a conference specifically for developers with a focus on open-source software. Among the people I had the chance to meet were Guilherme Chapiewski of Globo.com, a large media conglomerate; and my buddy Rodrigo Spillere, the young developer I met earlier this year at FISL 10. At this conference, I shared lessons learned from building an open-source community around an open-source project, while keeping in mind the user and community experience when writing code – because usability and constituent feedback are key to providing the best experience possible.
Dev in Rio 2009 – Ryan Ozimek e Coding Dojo from Guilherme Chapiewski on Vimeo. In a nutshell, I was able to explain, as one attendee said, “the secret sauce of the Joomla! community success and show how open-source projects are improving the landscape of technology and helping to change the world.”
When they came to us asking if we could help create an individual home on the internet for each and every one of these Discovery Shops, we had just one question: When do we start? By leveraging the power of Non-Profit Soapbox and crafting a common template for consistent branding across the network, we built 40 sites to promote each individual shop – all efficiently and easily for not much more than the cost of a single site. No fuss. No muss. Just a high quality network of easy to manage sites to further an important mission. But don’t take our word for it. Hear it straight from Steven Wirt, Director of Online and Internal Communications for the American Cancer Society of California: “I’ve been very impressed and pleased with Non-Profit Soapbox. Wrangling 40 web sites has been a seamless, pain-free experience.”
CORE Group’s website was in need of a visual upgrade, more functionality, and cleaner navigation and usability. PICnet created a new design for the site – phase 1 of the project. As the site is mostly informational, there isn’t too much interactive or dynamic functionality at this time. But in phase 2, PICnet will help punch up the site with donation processing and some other cool features to give the organization a real upgrade online. We’re really pleased with how the project is going so far, and it’s been a pleasure to work with CORE Group. They do some awesome work collaborating and sharing information for non-profits working in health care in developing countries – so we’re glad to be able to help them achieve this goal in a more effective way online. Thanks to everyone involved in getting this project off the ground! We look forward to completing the next phase. Learn more about CORE Group and its mission. |
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Just in time to celebrate the birth of some our most famous U.S. presidents, PICnet launched a new Soapbox website for the 
A couple weeks ago, we launched a really great new site for a great and deserving organization – the 
For fifteen years, 
A few weeks ago I previewed 
In the midst of the health care reform debate in our own country, there are still many global health crises out there waiting to be fixed. At PICnet, we work with many clients who strive towards improving global health through prevention, partnerships and awareness. One organization who fits this bill that we recently were honored to help is 
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