Soapbox Engage Blog

Tomorrow through Wednesday I'll be joining quite an esteemed list of non-profit technologists at the Salesforce.com Nonprofit Roadmap Summit, June 4-6, in San Mateo, CA. I'm eager to see how successful this crew can be at helping shape the roadmap for the non-profit template, and even more eager to see if this model can be replicated for our Non-Profit Soapbox. This is truly a unique opportunity to shape the future of a major application for our sector.

I just had a great online discussion with PICnetter Tim, who rightfully thinks I'm crazy for the hours I put into my work. Luckily, Tim and I were able to see eye-to-eye on a leadership development method called servant leadership. During the conversation, I thought about my CEO title, and how it seemed to connote and over-emphasize a top-down hierarchical structure at PICnet.

While I enjoy the title and the perks, like the CEO parking space (my bike in the office) and the CEO airline upgrades (every seat on jetBlue is first class), I believe a better term to associate with my position is "custodian" or possibly "steward".

I mean, look at this photo here. That's me, Ryan the Builder, with PICnet's good friend Susan Finkelpearl of Free Range Studios. What word comes to mind there, "CEO" or "custodian"?

In an effort to help spread the word of open source content management systems (CMS) and constituent relationship management systems (CRM), I was asked to give a talk at OneWorld on March 28, 2007 to the OneWorld Peer Learning Exchange. Roshani Kothari from OneWorld was gracious enough to write up some great notes on it (see below) as well as post a podcast of this.

Listen to the MP3 of the talk

Thanks to Roshani for her hard work to make these OneWorld Peer Learning Exchanges occur, and to my co-presenters Alan Rosenblatt and Guy Stevens for their contributions.

As a frequent flier of JetBlue airlines, I was as disappointed as others to hear the news of the horrible delays, poor customer service, and general lack of strategic planning that the company had during the weather problems of mid-February 2007. One thing that I knew about JetBlue, however, was its roll-up-the-sleeves mentality.

With Allan from the Non-Profit Tech Blog, the news never closes in the non-profit tech world. Thanks to his late night posting, we've learned some interesting news in what is becoming the year of the CRM shakeout.

In what is probably the most scathing review I've read of a corporate CEO by shareholders in our sector, especially one in our protected non-profit technology world, a large chunk of Kintera shareholders have politely asked CEO Harry Gruber to see the door.

I use the world "politely" kindly.

"With Mr. Gruber at its helm, Kintera has not demonstrated a sufficient ability to achieve its own projections, to drive operational efficiencies and the integration of acquisitions, to manage a productive salesforce which delivers organic growth, or to even provide a credible estimate for when the Company will be profitable."

Warning: the graphic after the jump may not be suitable for Kintera shareholders. On the other hand, Blackbaud shareholders should click with glee.

Not too long ago, I wrote a piece called Islands and bridges: why Soapbox will lead the way to CRM and CMS integration for non-profits, where I detailed our vision on breaking down the walls between important technology silos in the non-profit community.

At that time, we spoke only about content management systems (CMSes) and constituent relationship management (CRMs), and while feedback on the blog was quiet, offline we got an earful.

A full three months have passed since then, and I think it's about time to open the lid on how our bridge engineers are laying down the first strong links between these islands. Especially with postings like that of Allan Benamer from the Non-Profit Tech Blog, where he writes about his favorite stack of stacks, it made me think a response to his post might be in order.