I've been in IT for quite some time now and work for a large nonprofit in the upper midwest that recently moved to common ground/salesforce from a traditional client server solution. In addition to Common Ground I also have access to and work with Raiser's Edge.
The fact of the matter is that people, not software per se, generally determines the effectiveness of whatever solution is applied to the challenge of tracking people, transactions, and the many types of relationships nonprofits need to mange.
Consequently, instead of tossing the proverbial note in a bottle on slashdot and seeing what comes back you should be polling your users, your IT staff, and those that do or can understand what your organization is both capable and incapable of using, supporting, and growing.
Next, organize it, prioritize it, and cost it.
You will find that what you need from a nonprofit-centric crm is unexpected, hard to document, and not easily matched with any one tool on the market. But at least by taking the above approach it is your requirements, and not vendor brochures or the emotive proclamations in this thread (present company included), that will drive your selection process.
For my organization with IN PARTICULAR the common ground/salesforce platform works well. You have different needs, most certainly, and what works for us may not work for you.
the bill in minneosta is a sad one. the people supporting it, by the estimation of many, have a vested interest in seeing open office related products promoted via the odf political debate. the mn bill isn't about data formats as much as it is the product lines of various vendors. speaking as a minnesotan this bill has viturally no grass-roots support and its assumed corporate affiliations is seen as rendering a blow to the meaningful debate around data formats.
where politics and economics meet can get messy.
I laud your efforts at saving money. And, yes, I have no doubt there will be those in State government that attempt to circumvent implementing the measures this bill tries to mandate.
But this must start somewhere. And it must start sometime.
Look at Northstar. Do a search. The documents come back mostly as html, word or pdf. In an exercise conducted at harvard nearly 80% of the html documents they looked at were syntactically incorrect. As a another post noted, PDF is not open (pdf/a exluded). And Word. Well, you know...
The point i'm making is that Minnesota may be better off than others, but things aren't looking good. Heck, look at the Enterprise Architecture thing. Its got information stored in an MS Access database. How many Minnesotans have Acess sitting on the desktop? That aint' democracy when state information is maintained in a format that costs $300 dollars to access.
This is about the very foundations of State infrastructure and accessiblity. And if its just you and me that's fine.
As thomas jefferson said a little rebellion now and again is a good thing.
I clearly understand the challenge you're pointing out.
And you may hate the scale and the work this bill implies. But to a very real extent the system(s) of which you speak was designed sans a specification that the data should be accessible for a period of time known but to those who at some future date will need the data (Sarbanes Ox. Et al compliance lands this blow not me!).
Further, that the data, post another 9/11 disaster, have multiple access points (potential interfaces) so as to ensure rapid, accurate and highly portable availability.
And lastly, that the data exist in a state that is not bound by any legal encumbrances. Great example: American pilots had to borrow fighters from the English and French at the beginning of WWI b/c the Wright brothers sued for patent infringement anyone that attempted to build anything in the US that looked like plane.
Sarbanes Ox., 9/11 styled data availability, and lastly Americans flying French fighters...
You can think backend systems should be exempt, but what if it is a backend system you or your family relies on to remedy any of the above crises? I have two kids so please don't think i mean any disrespect by this. I'm just making the point that this bill is about way more than saving Word files in XML. It would be wrong to do otherwise.
Look, nothing the State does is cheap. So the numbers you're tossing around are relative.
Further, you yourself mentioned that you got an awesome price for a system that 15 -15- other States developed. You see cost savings? I see collaboration paradigms and technologies being flushed at the tax payers expense!!!
Before you slam the bill and pat yourself on the back for implementing such a large system, perhaps you should ask yourself (and go public) with the ways you or your vendors have acted so other States -vis-a-vis fellow Americans- needing a similar system will be able to drive down their cost either through the sharing of technology, standards, etc.. I expect very little and its for this reason that your 'int ain't gonna happen here' is so intellectually, ethically and fiscally dubious.
Indeed, it is this sort of myopic view of the world that, tragically, requires a more prescriptive approach -a law- that forces us to think of the greater good -in this case those other states that will need the system you're so eager to protect.
perhaps there is no hope for the bill. but if there isn't the fault lies not with the ideas it constrains. Rather, the problem would appear to reside elsewhere. Someplace deeper.
That said, Minnesota is made up of a proud tradition of people working together for the greater good. And i have no doubt that if any State is capable of understanding and acting on the principles of the collective good it is Minnesota.
hey, i don't know how old you are, but I'd rather bit the cost bullet now when the price tag is x rather than pass the burden along to my kids that very possibly will have to pass a bill to allocate funds to dig out the entrenched systems you seem intent to let stand. the FBI can help you get a good idea of how this sort of thing might happen. that said, the bill provides for incremented reviews of systems and where a new, open standard isn't available, the old one can stand. but at least some one is asking the question. As to your 'it ain't gonna happen': the Drive to Excellence and Jesse V. are jus two examples of how it 'can happen' if enough smart minnesotans want it to.
HF3971 is the real deal. hf3982 is a very different bill. combining the two just confuses the situation. i'd suspect the two bills were written by very dissimilar people with very dissimilar objectives.
NO NO NO
S3730 IS NOT THE RIGHT BILL. it frankly looks like something put together quickly and almost has the FEEL of something submitted by MS to create confusion.
3971 IS THE CORRECT BILL AND THE LEGISLATION SUBMITTED TO SLASHDOT. It is more sophisticated and techncially sound.
AGAIN 3971 IS THE CORRECT BILL AND THE LEGISLATION SUBMITTED TO SLASHDOT. It is more sophisticated and techncially sound.
In so many ways and so often government has picked up the ball where few others would. Where ideas that aren't popular, that are too expensive, or that appear to risk all, government is regularly mandated to take on the challenge we would not as individuals, groups or businesses.
Whether building dams in Nevada or sending Americans to the moon, it is the one entity that can face risk of failure and not flinch. In part this is because it represents our collective courage to attempt the impossible.
For this reason it is entirely logical to me that it is a state, in this instance the great state of Minnesota, that would take on the the challenge of ensuring that its technological infrastructure is solid and, if not, fix what needs fixing.
Indeed, what other company or organization in recent memory has challenged itself with so introspective and potentially damaging a question in order to arrive at a better place.
Open Formats are a difficult proposition to be sure. No one denies this. But it is becoming increasingly clear that without the safeguards associated with open formats the State abdicates control of the very information it is suppose to protect.
Regardless of derived the system a solution must be constructed that returns balance and moves control of State information back to those with whom the trust has been placed.
I for one will be writing my representative to support the Bill.
Excellent point. Whatever conversion system is designed, and by the looks of it this has been a design consideration for the NAA, it must be extensible as the present array of standards are probably not in their final form nor the sum total of required formats needed to capture all the stuff that's being generated out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been in IT for quite some time now and work for a large nonprofit in the upper midwest that recently moved to common ground/salesforce from a traditional client server solution. In addition to Common Ground I also have access to and work with Raiser's Edge.
The fact of the matter is that people, not software per se, generally determines the effectiveness of whatever solution is applied to the challenge of tracking people, transactions, and the many types of relationships nonprofits need to mange.
Consequently, instead of tossing the proverbial note in a bottle on slashdot and seeing what comes back you should be polling your users, your IT staff, and those that do or can understand what your organization is both capable and incapable of using, supporting, and growing.
Next, organize it, prioritize it, and cost it.
You will find that what you need from a nonprofit-centric crm is unexpected, hard to document, and not easily matched with any one tool on the market. But at least by taking the above approach it is your requirements, and not vendor brochures or the emotive proclamations in this thread (present company included), that will drive your selection process.
For my organization with IN PARTICULAR the common ground/salesforce platform works well. You have different needs, most certainly, and what works for us may not work for you.
Good luck!
Valid points. data formats are complex and OpenXML adds to the complexity.
the bill in minneosta is a sad one. the people supporting it, by the estimation of many, have a vested interest in seeing open office related products promoted via the odf political debate. the mn bill isn't about data formats as much as it is the product lines of various vendors. speaking as a minnesotan this bill has viturally no grass-roots support and its assumed corporate affiliations is seen as rendering a blow to the meaningful debate around data formats. where politics and economics meet can get messy.
I laud your efforts at saving money. And, yes, I have no doubt there will be those in State government that attempt to circumvent implementing the measures this bill tries to mandate.
But this must start somewhere. And it must start sometime.
Look at Northstar. Do a search. The documents come back mostly as html, word or pdf. In an exercise conducted at harvard nearly 80% of the html documents they looked at were syntactically incorrect. As a another post noted, PDF is not open (pdf/a exluded). And Word. Well, you know...
The point i'm making is that Minnesota may be better off than others, but things aren't looking good. Heck, look at the Enterprise Architecture thing. Its got information stored in an MS Access database. How many Minnesotans have Acess sitting on the desktop? That aint' democracy when state information is maintained in a format that costs $300 dollars to access.
This is about the very foundations of State infrastructure and accessiblity. And if its just you and me that's fine.
As thomas jefferson said a little rebellion now and again is a good thing.
You're not alone.
I clearly understand the challenge you're pointing out.
And you may hate the scale and the work this bill implies. But to a very real extent the system(s) of which you speak was designed sans a specification that the data should be accessible for a period of time known but to those who at some future date will need the data (Sarbanes Ox. Et al compliance lands this blow not me!).
Further, that the data, post another 9/11 disaster, have multiple access points (potential interfaces) so as to ensure rapid, accurate and highly portable availability.
And lastly, that the data exist in a state that is not bound by any legal encumbrances. Great example: American pilots had to borrow fighters from the English and French at the beginning of WWI b/c the Wright brothers sued for patent infringement anyone that attempted to build anything in the US that looked like plane.
Sarbanes Ox., 9/11 styled data availability, and lastly Americans flying French fighters...
You can think backend systems should be exempt, but what if it is a backend system you or your family relies on to remedy any of the above crises? I have two kids so please don't think i mean any disrespect by this. I'm just making the point that this bill is about way more than saving Word files in XML. It would be wrong to do otherwise.
Look, nothing the State does is cheap. So the numbers you're tossing around are relative.
Further, you yourself mentioned that you got an awesome price for a system that 15 -15- other States developed. You see cost savings? I see collaboration paradigms and technologies being flushed at the tax payers expense!!!
Before you slam the bill and pat yourself on the back for implementing such a large system, perhaps you should ask yourself (and go public) with the ways you or your vendors have acted so other States -vis-a-vis fellow Americans- needing a similar system will be able to drive down their cost either through the sharing of technology, standards, etc.. I expect very little and its for this reason that your 'int ain't gonna happen here' is so intellectually, ethically and fiscally dubious.
Indeed, it is this sort of myopic view of the world that, tragically, requires a more prescriptive approach -a law- that forces us to think of the greater good -in this case those other states that will need the system you're so eager to protect.
perhaps there is no hope for the bill. but if there isn't the fault lies not with the ideas it constrains.
Rather, the problem would appear to reside elsewhere. Someplace deeper.
That said, Minnesota is made up of a proud tradition of people working together for the greater good. And i have no doubt that if any State is capable of understanding and acting on the principles of the collective good it is Minnesota.
hey, i don't know how old you are, but I'd rather bit the cost bullet now when the price tag is x rather than pass the burden along to my kids that very possibly will have to pass a bill to allocate funds to dig out the entrenched systems you seem intent to let stand. the FBI can help you get a good idea of how this sort of thing might happen. that said, the bill provides for incremented reviews of systems and where a new, open standard isn't available, the old one can stand. but at least some one is asking the question. As to your 'it ain't gonna happen': the Drive to Excellence and Jesse V. are jus two examples of how it 'can happen' if enough smart minnesotans want it to.
HF3971 is the real deal. hf3982 is a very different bill. combining the two just confuses the situation. i'd suspect the two bills were written by very dissimilar people with very dissimilar objectives.
You're exactly right!
this is about data in formats that will withstand the test of time and market churn. not slamming MS. it is also not about OS.
NO NO NO S3730 IS NOT THE RIGHT BILL. it frankly looks like something put together quickly and almost has the FEEL of something submitted by MS to create confusion. 3971 IS THE CORRECT BILL AND THE LEGISLATION SUBMITTED TO SLASHDOT. It is more sophisticated and techncially sound. AGAIN 3971 IS THE CORRECT BILL AND THE LEGISLATION SUBMITTED TO SLASHDOT. It is more sophisticated and techncially sound.
In so many ways and so often government has picked up the ball where few others would. Where ideas that aren't popular, that are too expensive, or that appear to risk all, government is regularly mandated to take on the challenge we would not as individuals, groups or businesses.
Whether building dams in Nevada or sending Americans to the moon, it is the one entity that can face risk of failure and not flinch. In part this is because it represents our collective courage to attempt the impossible.
For this reason it is entirely logical to me that it is a state, in this instance the great state of Minnesota, that would take on the the challenge of ensuring that its technological infrastructure is solid and, if not, fix what needs fixing.
Indeed, what other company or organization in recent memory has challenged itself with so introspective and potentially damaging a question in order to arrive at a better place.
Open Formats are a difficult proposition to be sure. No one denies this. But it is becoming increasingly clear that without the safeguards associated with open formats the State abdicates control of the very information it is suppose to protect.
Regardless of derived the system a solution must be constructed that returns balance and moves control of State information back to those with whom the trust has been placed.
I for one will be writing my representative to support the Bill.
Excellent point. Whatever conversion system is designed, and by the looks of it this has been a design consideration for the NAA, it must be extensible as the present array of standards are probably not in their final form nor the sum total of required formats needed to capture all the stuff that's being generated out there.
nonetheless, awesome job NAA!!!