CAMT in style at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference

CAMT was in full attendence at NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference this year in Washington, DC, from April 4-6. Brad flew out early to attend the Day of Service on Wednesday. He helped an organization learn how to record and post a podcast.

Emily and I flew into DC together late Wednesday night and strategized our session attendence. The conference came at an integral time when Emily and I are looking for jobs, so we focused our networking opportunities to certain session tracks. She mostly attended Web 2.0 and communication sessions, while I focused on consulting and project management ones.

Some of the highlights of the sessions I attended:

Bill Strathmann's session, "The ROI Question: Demonstrating the value of technology to your organization," was particularly informative. He presented some nice models and diagrams of how to demonstrate your IT value to your funders or CEO in a clear and concise way. I'll definitely be looking to the complimentary thumbdrive that NTEN gave away to access that Power Point presentation.

The rule of managing expectations was re-enforced in a casual and anecdotal setting at the "Contracting with Consultants: How to engineer a better working relationship." Eric Leland and session attendees shared their expertise and stories about the consulting relationship.

CAMT had a prime spot in the grand hallway to the conference's main ballroom at the Innovation Plaza. Brad and I demonstrated CAMT's new CueRate tool, a visual art panel review management system, to conference passerbys. I also had the chance to talk to professionals who were interested in presenting at Technology in the Arts 2007.

The conference finale came when Grassroots.org awarded CAMT a one foot tall glittery tree statuette and $1000 for CueRate, one of the top 6 innovative tools recognized for the Techie Award of the Year. Cary pleased the audience and placated the time-laden MC with a quick victory pose.

Photos and the award video will be up soon on Flickr and YouTube, respectively.�

Aspiration 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Review

If you can imagine the geekiness that drives the creation of such innovative projects as Drupal, combined with the passion that is dedicated to seeing nonprofits successfully serve their constituents, you would be witnessing a typical attendee at this Summit. The energy present in Oakland that week was amazing. I walked into the Summit a day late during the skill-sharing session. Rather wide-eyed at how I was supposed to enter into the space, a nearby participant approached and welcomed me to sit down and chat until the session was over. This incident wasn't particular either; many individuals were very friendly, thus making the experience all the more rich.

The Summit had the perfect balance of application and theory sessions. I walked out of there learning about new technologies and how to use them, in addition to being aware of current policy and field issues. I was however, wishing that more people who served the arts were present.

Here are some highlights of a few of the sessions I sat in on. You may visit the Aspiration Summit wiki to gain insight as to how all the sessions went.

Case Study: Benetech's Miradi Project

Kevin Smith was very generous with his knowledge- catching me up with concepts of Agile Development and the process of specification gathering in this case. This information was woven into the narrative of how the Miradi Project came to be. After getting the meat of this session, I hopped over to Where are the Biggest Tool Gaps - a practice not so common in this type of small setting, admittedly. :) I came into the tail end of Laura Quinn's colloborative session that tried to pinpoint exactly where some of our energies might be spent to build a more cohesive and exhaustive link among the available technology tools.

Next Steps in Breaking the Integration Deadlock

Tate Hausman, from DotOrganize, along with Holly Ross from NTEN, set out to begin some formalized steps towards addresssing Open API issues. The session began by presenting the various definitions of what Integration could look like, and ended by discussing the many facets involved with resolving the scope of issues. Look forward to a potential API gathering- from NTEN or DotOrganize- to address integration issues!

Software Project Management Mind Meld

This session was particularly relevant to me as I see myself fulfilling a similar capacity in my next job. Jeremy Wallace, of the Fund for the City of New York, moderated a session where a room full of project managers discussed the benefits and drawbacks of various project managent tools: bug trackers, general project management, time tracking, collaborative editing and discussion. Some beneficial themes that also arose were: managing client's expectations, dealing with scope changes and various methods for distilling the requirements gathering process.

Exploring Opportunites for Collaborative Development

Laura Quinn and Jeremy Wallace led this session of mixed developers and administrators. Issues such as intellectual property rights, licensing, branding, buy-in and follow-through, and sharing development practices all arose as common barriers to the collaboration process. This session was hearty and intense. I suggest you review the wiki notes.

Smelling the AJAX Koolaid

I didn't know what AJAX was when I showed up to this session and my brain was satiated with resolution upon leaving. Evan Henshaw-Plath presented the history of AJAX, how websites use it, what the features look like, and the benefits and negatives. I also learned about the code libraries that support AJAX development, ways of using the DOM to create a separate AJAX file from your html one, and how to troubleshoot new browsers. It was awesome, but admittedly, I will never put myself in the position of using it. Hey, but concepts are all I focus on anyways.

Creating your Nonprofit Tech Community

I'm rounding out my last semester at Carnegie Mellon and the job search has begun.  Instead of sifting through my Career Services email blasts, looking specifically for techy type positions within the nonprofit community, I have staked out a few organizations where I can build a network. Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders    I literally began my career in arts administation with the Emerging Leaders Listserv.  While working part-time at the City of Ventura Cultural Affairs Division, I was granted an organizational membership.  I posed questions about the field, participated in lively discussions revolving around my peer group's issues, found answers to my graduate program concerns and actually made contacts with Carnegie Mellon's Master of Arts Management alums.  Student membership is only $25! 

Technology in the Arts Conference    My experience coordinating this conference and working for CAMT confirmed the possibility of fusing my creative interests with my technology skills.  If you want to meet anyone who is anyone in the arts sector and is a tech-enthusiast, this is the place to be.  Be prepared to meet E.D.'s, practitioners, and innovators alike.  The packed programming schedule is hands-on and relevant.�

NTEN Affinity Groups    I have just become a member so my involvement thus far is somewhat limited. (I made my profile.)  However, I have surveyed the participation in the groups and it seems like there are both opportunities for employment and networking, not to mention practical tech advice and interesting discussion.

A good strategy of building upon these communities is looking at their partners or affiliates.  Go to any of these websites, including TechSoup or NPower.  Look at the Board Members and their employers.  Look at their sponsors, exhibitors and partners.  TechSoup even has a TechFinder where you can locate services.  Find out who is offering those services.  And then go to those websites, become a member or part of their community, and/or look for job openings.

I have also recently found this Yahoo Group: Nonprofit Tech Jobs.  A brave soul manages this list voluntarily.  Bless her heart and the amount of crap she must receive in the form of inappropriate job requests and favors.  Just check out the slew of advisory messages you'll receive from her after signing up.

And lastly, don't forget trusty nonprofit job searching websites like Idealist, Craigslist, NonprofitOyster, and ExecSearches.

If you want art field jobs, just contact me as I have a huge list of web portals where opportunities abound.�

Aspiration Nonprofit Software Development Summit

On Feb. 21-23, Aspiration will be holding its first "convening to bring together the range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of 'nonprofit software development,'" in Oakland, CA. I will be attending on Thursday and Friday and hope to network with the many pioneers of this niche sector. It's a loosely organized event, but it aims to base its content on the following themes:

• Practices, Processes and Community will address concepts, themes and essential issues in the nonprofit software development realm.
• Software Engineering Topics and Trends will dive deep on a host of technical and strategic issues relevant to nonprofit software developers.
• Going Vertical: Application Focus Areas will explore specific “vertical” categories of nonprofit software.

Check out the website for more details, and I'll be sure to report on how my experience went.

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Is Art and Shopping the new Art and Entertainment?

In our Strategic Planning class last night, our professor and CEO of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Larry Tamburri, made mention of the current trend to link art with entertainment. On city websites and in tourist guides, "Arts & Entertainment" abounds- correlating performance and visual arts spaces with movies, bowling alleys and roller rinks. While these sectors, along with sports, are competitive for the use of our leisure time, one has to ponder whether the arts is becoming diluted or just marginalized by efficient marketing. This discussion, however, becomes completely moot as a whole new space and concept has presented itself in Winston-Salem, NC.

Wal-mArt

It's mildly disturbing and yet I can't help to acknowledge that it might just be another form of corporate sponsorship. There is also the chance that it was just a clause of the negotiation that allowed Wal-Mart to set up shop there.

A true test would be to see if the sculptures are "Public Art" or "Art in a Public Space." Without having a good picture to make reference, I would be really interested to see if Wal-Mart finally designed a building that reflected the community architecture, and by extension, contracted a sculpture that reflected its environs. �

Making art from the internet

I recently had the opportunity to attend one of the Artist Lecture Series here at CMU hosted by the College of Fine Arts. Because they joined forces with the Human Computer Interaction Institute, a lot of the guest speakers were amazingly innovative technology artists. Martin Wattenberg, who leads the Visual Communication Lab at IBM Research, creates visualizations based on content from the internet and other data sources. Check out some of his research projects. I also came across an interesting article today that strikes me as really relevant- especially as I sift through the hordes of spam I receive everyday. Alex Dragulescu, an alumnus of UC San Diego, develops algorithms to process his spam emails to create botanical and architectural looking digital structures. He likens his process to a contemporary version of found art.

Carnegie Museums have gone digital

Through the Art Collection Search, people can now browse the Carnegie Museums of Arts' collection online. I think this is a perfect segue to our Successful Digitization Projects Funded by the IMLS presented at the conference in October. After resolving some of their copyright issues, and following up on the statute of limitations for art (the artist's death + 70 years) the site is up!

No registration is required. Just go to the website and browse!

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Mood Affecting Artwork

This article, details how computer scientists from the U.S. and Britain have created an artwork whose palette will correspond to facial cues of an observer.

Oddly enough, the painting will turn somber when a frown is perceived or become playful when smiles are observed. I think they got it backwards; they should have made gruesome scenes when a face is observed to happy and vice versa... Just to keep the observers on the edge. Plus, do we always have to reinforce that happy is red and yellow, and sadness is blue and purple?

What I am waiting for is the ultimate marketing gimmick: the painting that changes all the time until it picks up on a smile, upon which time it stays stagnant. That way- the painting will be individually pleasant to everyone.