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We’ve been excited to see the popularity of our J!Salesforce integration tool between Joomla and Salesforce.com (also available to all our Non-Profit Soapbox organizations!). Some folks have been interested in seeing some videos to better understand what the tool can provide to Joomla Web sites. Well, I made a little video tour of the administrator interface and the front-end search form builder to help provide a visual overview. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show. J!Salesforce Search Functionality Video TourJ!Salesforce Administrator Video TourDoes your organization currently use Salesforce? Are you looking to get the most from your Salesforce application through innovative customization or integration with your website? If so, read on for important news that could supercharge your CRM! Connect your website with Salesforce through J!SalesforcePICnet offers J!Salesforce, an elegant and powerful tool that integrates your Soapbox/Joomla! website with your Salesforce install. This tool provides:
Interested in implementing this on your site? Contact us today about tapping into the power of J!Salesforce. Salesforce.com Foundation Grant Program: Technology Innovation 2010 GrantsLooking to expand your use of Salesforce? The Salesforce.com Foundation is seeking to fund innovative proposals through its 2010 Grant Program. Through this program, they are soliciting applications that meet the following:
Strength in numbers: Collaborative applications for a common solutionAt PICnet, we’re huge fans of Salesforce and the power it has to transform an organization’s relationship with its clients, donors, and partners. This is why we created J!Salesforce. This is why we plan to expand its feature set in the future. This is also why we are doing more than simply passing on the good news about the Salesforce.com Foundation grant program. PICnet is currently reaching out to interested clients and other potential partners to facilitate a joint application that will center around expanding connectivity between Soapbox/Joomla! sites and Salesforce. Our intention is to provide technical guidance to translate individual organizational goals into common coding tools in order to produce maximum benefit for multiple clients and an increased ability for the collaborators to submit a successful application that provides a “realistic plan for replication to the global nonprofit community.” If you are interested in participating in this collaborative effort, please contact us today! Not a Salesforce user but curious about becoming one?Salesforce is the world’s most popular CRM. What’s more, it is free to non-profit organizations through the Salesforce.com Foundation. Check out their program today to learn more about how this robust CRM can enhance your organization’s work. The Prevention Institute wanted to overhaul their website, which was a combination of a few different sites, but all had different site architectures. Working with our design partner and neighbor, FreeRange Graphics, PICnet streamlined the site’s navigation, making it more SEO and user friendly. Prevention Institute was founded in 1997 to serve as a focal point for primary prevention practice—promoting policies, organizational practices, and collaborative efforts that improve health and quality of life. As a national non-profit organization, the Institute is committed to preventing illness and injury, to fostering health and social equity, and to building momentum for community prevention as an integral component of a quality health system. Prevention Institute synthesizes research and practice; develops prevention tools and frameworks; helps design and guide interdisciplinary partnerships; and conducts training and strategic consultation with government, foundations, and community-based organizations nationwide and internationally. The entire staff at Prevention was super during the development process. I especially worked well with Annie Lyles, my main point of contact on the project. Annie is much more of a visual person than I am, so in order to communicate effectively, we even set up our own language to refer to the tools on the website. Because the timeline of the project was quite long, I definitely was able to establish a fun relationship with the team at Prevention. These days you can’t roam far in our non-profit world without hearing the buzz about “social networking” or “social media”. Wherever you go, you can’t help but overhear people talking about Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools. These services provide organizations a great way to connect with supporters and provide new channels for fund raising, but how can you best integrate these tools into your Web site for the maximum impact? What are the best practices in tying your social networking strategy with your Web site communications strategy? We’ll answer these question and more at the next Soapbox Salon! PICnet’s Soapbox Salon When: Thursday, March 18, 2010 Please RSVP by Wednesday, March 17 by clicking the link below and registering for the event. Questions? Contact Julie Dennis at julie@picnet.net or by calling (202) 585-0273. **************************** UPDATE! Thanks to all who attended the Soapbox Salon today to learn about successful strategies for connecting Soapbox with Twitter and Facebook. We’re happy to share the slides for the presentation here: Our next Soapbox Salon is scheduled for May 13th. We’ll share more information here as the time approaches! Last week, I attended a beginner Joomla! training. As someone who doesn’t deal with Joomla! or Soapbox or much of the other projects that my colleagues do on a daily basis, this was a new experience for me. I learned how to add articles online, connect websites (such as Google and YouTube) to the training website using Joomla’s wrapper feature, and was even able to start the design of my own site online! I may not be a Joomla! wizard just yet, but I thought it was a great introduction to some of the cool stuff our PICnet team works on, and the information is invaluable to me better understanding Joomla and Soapbox. Thanks to PICnet and the NOVA JUG for making this happen! Conference dates: September 30-October 1 One of the most exciting trips I’ve been able to make this year was earlier this fall when I traveled around the world to Mongolia for their Joomla!Day. There was a great mix of attendees in addition to the usual Joomla! Enthusiasts; including B. Dolgor, the head of the cabinet secretariat for the Mongolian federal government; USAID Mongolia; Mr. T. Altansukh, leader of the Mongolian translation team; and university students. I was pleased to give one of the keynotes again at this conference and emphasized the impressive achievement of the Joomla! community in Mongolia translating the entire project into Mongolian. I also celebrated the successful adoption of Joomla! across all federal agencies with B. Dolgor. After sharing information from the Joomla! leadership team on the future of project, we highlighted the community’s potential to make an impact on the global Joomla! community now that they had overcome their biggest obstacle: language barriers. Next steps for Mongolian Joomla! Community users is to help small businesses through this powerful open-source software, as well as to increase transparency in the federal government. Joomla! Can be an empowering tool that leads to a new way of life – and that’s something we can all be proud to be part of. Read more about the conference here. Check out a video interview of me in Mongolia! If your holiday calendar isn’t full yet, we’ve got something to fill it with – PICnet is reinstating Soapbox Tuesdays, a monthly forum held at our offices for Joomla and Soapbox users. We’ll discuss the up and coming, answer your questions, brainstorm, and give feedback where needed. We’re excited to create a space where people can bring their lunch and their questions to chat about how technology is changing the non-profit world. As the year wraps up, it’s time to gear up for last minute changes to your Non-Profit Soapbox and Joomla Web sites. What better way to do this than by sharing some lessons learned with your fellow Non-Profit Soapbox and Joomla! users at PICnet! When: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 We hope to see you there! Click here for more details.
The cookbook is available via Packt Publishing. Well-written and thorough, this reference book will not only help introduce new Joomla! developers to the Joomla! framework, but can also serve as a great reference for experienced developers needing to brush up on some best practices. Full disclosure: I was one of the technical reviewers of the book. Check out the book online, and order it as a holiday gift for that Joomla! lover on your list, or for yourself!
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. The Brazilian technology community is bubbling with amazing energy, and I had a great opportunity to see it first-hand this past weekend. On Saturday, I was asked to speak at Intercon 2009, an annual gathering of Web technologists in Brazil. I’m excited to report back that the Brazilian community (especially those in the Joomla world) are heavily engaged in our open source technology ecology. My presentation focused on open source content management systems (CMS) with two perspectives: that of a company looking to invest in CMS software, and that of a business looking to build a solid business model based on providing services around open source CMS software. I provided a little snapshot of PICnet’s history, moving from a pure consulting firm to one providing our flagship Non-Profit Soapbox product, while sharing some lessons learned and paths to success.
Many thanks go to our friends at iMasters, who put on this great conference, and who were gracious hosts during my stay in Sao Paulo. I’m looking forward to next year’s event! |
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The holiday season is all about delicious foods and favorites, right? Well, this new recipe collection may not have your typical ingredients list and steps to preparing Grandma’s peach crumble, but the 
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