Soapbox Engage Blog

This is a guest post by Grey Frandsen, our company's co-founder and inspirational guru.

Dear PICnet Family and Friends:

10 years ago Ryan Ozimek and I set out to create a company to serve organizations with brave and selfless missions.

Our objective was clear: produce highly-functional and cutting-edge technology solutions for organizations that typically were more focused (and rightfully so) on their own critical missions - tackling challenges like homelessness, refugee resettlement, education, emergency response, social justice, community development, cancer treatment, etc.  You know, really important stuff.

Funny enough, though, we didn't start with a product or silver-bullet solution.  We set out only to help these organizations do more for less so they could make a greater impact.  Our work for our first great client led to a second amazing client.  Our second client turned into numbers five, 10, and so on.  As we grew, so too did our understanding of the market, our clients, their challenges, and what PICnet could do to continue to serve a growing number of fantastic organizations.  It actually worked.

To be sure, thought, this vision was pretty unique in 2000.  Serving charitable, non-profit and international NGOs wasn't exactly sexy.  It wasn't where the IPOs were being offered or where the angel investors wanted to spend a lot of time.  In fact, Ryan and I were viewed as "the goodie-two-dudes" by those setting out to make big profits in other, more glamorous arenas.  Better for us, we thought, even if it meant we'd be charting our own course in unknown territory (like Albania, Uganda, or Indonesia).

PICnet co-founder Grey Frandsen during the early days of PICnet

It seems like only yesterday that Grey Frandsen and I were sitting in BJ's Pizza near UCLA in Westwood, California, talking about a concept we believed could provide the world with insight into local politics from around the globe.  It was March 20, 2000, and the concept was called the Political Information Center Network.

Being an efficiency snob, I thought we needed a shorter name.  Grey, with loads of experience from the NGO world and a taste of government experience, thought the acronym "PICnet" might be fitting, because, as I can clearly remember after a long debate on the matter on the steps of my apartment building in Westwood, "it's the one the sounds most similar to 'picnic', and I like food...so I vote for 'PICnet'."

The rest, they say, is history.  Well, you can actually see a little bit of history of PICnet courtesy of the Wayback Machine's image of our early test site on May 11, 2000!

I've been to more than a few conferences this year. Most conferences I attend are squarely focused on either the Joomla! or non-profit technology communities.  That tends to be my comfort zone.  So when I decided to join Melanie and Tim to do some crosstraining and Joomla! evangelism at Salesforce.com Dreamforce 2010 conference, I had no idea what to expect.

The result:  after four days at Dreamforce I was completely exhausted, my mind was swirling with possibilities, and I'd shaken more hands than a politician walking a rope line.  Thank goodness for the "cloud" beanbag areas in San Francisco's Moscone West.

[caption id="attachment_1214" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="PICnetters and SaaSy at Dreamforce 2010"][/caption]

There were more than a few times I asked myself, "is this a rock concert, or am I at a technology conference?"  DJs were spinning in the lobbies of all the conference halls (Dreamforce took over all three of the Moscone conference halls in San Francisco), SaaSy and Chatty (Saleforce's mascots) roamed the halls with big smiles, and the rain didn't keep anyone from staying to see Stevie Wonder, will.i.am and apl.de.ap, and President Bill Clinton make appearances.

But seriously, it wasn't a rock conference.

This year has been quite a ride for us at PICnet, especially with strong pickup in the community of our Non-Profit Soapbox services.  After hiring a new project manager (great to have you aboard, Alex!), we're continuing our recession-busting expansion.  We're looking to keep pace with the project inquiries coming in to us on a daily basis, and we could certainly use another set of hands and a sharp mind to keep pace with the proposal writing needed.

Needless to say, we need more hands on deck!  So, we're hiring for our new Business Development Associate position.