Hello all,
Sorry I've been incognito for about two weeks, but I was on a short trip and
then spent the last three days attending AspirationTech's Non-Profit Software
Development Summit. I wanted to report back to the group to the group on my
experience and some of my learnings.
So, as a bit of the background, the summit has been going on for around a
decade and brings people from all over the spectrum that are involved in NP
software - developers, program managers, community managers, "hacktivists",
designers, etc. There were also people representing a wide range of
organizations - work co-ops, web dev shops (focused on social good), NTen,
TechSoup, EFF, SalesForce Foundation, etc. There were only a few of us focused
on international work, but despite that I still found a lot of common ground
and value in the discussions.
Some of the sessions I attended:
People-Powered Programs: How Pro-Social Projects are Harnessing Networks &
Communities Of Practice To Get Things Done:
The title is a little misleading, or confusing, but really it was a
group of us brainstorming on good practices to collect customer requirements
from our users and how to filter it. Lots of good ideas here and it was
interesting to hear the input from different types of projects - from large
scale web projects like moveon.org to very small orgs. The notes are a little
confusing, but its worth glancing through if you are going to be gathering some
requirements and feel free to chat with me, I can kind of translate some of
those learnings (and I'm thinking of updating the notes on this page a bit) -
http://is.gd/bQ2yes
Introducing SocialCoding4Good
Benetech, a non profit software company out of Palo Alto, CA has
started an initiative to connect interested volunteers with HFOSS projects (new
term for me! Humanitarian FOSS - which Mifos is one!). Part of the goal is to
really become the place for connecting those individuals, create a community
around it, potentially create incentives for volunteers (getting recognition
through globally recognized badges, etc), assisting HFOSS projects in
streamlining their onboarding process, help companies great good CSR programs,
etc. I got excited as it could potentially become a good place to find more
volunteers, but the potential to create sharing between various HFOSS projects
around community management, product management, etc. We already share a lot
with OpenMRS, but be great to get involved with the greater community. Looks
like there are no notes up, but you can check out the site -
http://socialcoding4good.org/ - I know Ed has talked to the head of it,
Gerardo, in the past - and at the moment they are running a pilot, but I
recommend we jump on early once its opened up.
Burnout
There was a small session on dealing with burnout - It was a nice
personal side, where people talked about being so passionate about their work
that they got burned out, talked about ways to identify it and then on ways to
help manage it. Looks like the notes aren't up, but it was a nice side group
there.
Developing and Using Low-End Mobile Tools, Including SMS, SIM Toolkit, and
Simple Apps,
Good group discussing what tools are out there and what programs are
out there (actually, the facilitator and I spent a good chunk of the time just
talking about a lot of the innovation happening in the developing world with
mobile phones), and some time on sms blasting options. Looks like the notes
haven't been posted yet, but definitely worth looking at it, if for nothing
else than to check out some of the shared resources - http://is.gd/lMMXFd
Overall, I really enjoyed myself, met lots of great people and did find lots of
value, despite being unsure after the first day (It was spent doing icebreakers
and then some disjointed break out sessions that I didn't find as much value
in). Despite the international focus being small, I still got a lot out of it
as there were people facing a lot of the same issues. If you're interested, I
would definitely encourage all of you to consider going next year, be great to
get more of an international presence at the conference and bring more issues
to the forefront for discussion for a group like ours.
oh, and you can see the entire agenda here and subsequent notes as well (as
they are posted):
http://devsummit.aspirationtech.org/index.php?title=2011_Agenda
Cheers,
Ryan
---------------------------------------
Ryan Whitney
[email protected]
US mobile: +1.206.734.5110
global: +1.206.235.4479
The Sun is always shining someplace
- Muhammad Ali
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