fuzion

So the concept of getting locked in a cabin in the woods with 10 other civicrm users and developers to write a much needed manual from woe to go in 5-days was a fascinating one. And the experience lived up to the promise.

The location was Truckee California, the technology was Floss Manuals, our ‘guide’ was Adam Hyde - and the mission was a bit daunting.

After 5-days of hard slog, some very fine food and great company we hit ‘publish’ around 6pm on Friday (yes I know, I should have finished my chapter at 5pm Adam!) and the manual was immediately available as a free download PDF, and as a hard copy that can be purchased online.

So how does a booksprint work. Well, in our case, once we had divvied the book up in to chapters we all leapt in to the most relevant chapters, emptied our brains, passed it on to someone else, moved on somewhere else, came back to it later. In amongst this we argued about spelling (open source won the day and spelling was agnostic of UK or USA style English), we conferred on how exactly CiviCRM dealt with curly problems - and we laughed.

We even let some Joomla! folk participate

Did it work - undoubtedly it did. There was no manual, then there was. The concept is brilliant. There are definitely some ways I think both the technology and the process can be tweaked to ensure that even more of our efforts were fruitful. There were occasions where we clearly had to much overlap across some chapters, and there were some gaps that we will have to go back and fill in.

In terms of process, hats off to Adam for steering us through. My preference in future would be to have a more layered map of what we are aiming for - the software really only let us frame it out at the Chapter level, and I think going down another two levels on the outline - and being able to view the output in such an outlined format - would be great.

And yes, I would use a mindmapping tool such as FreeMind to manage the content outlines because it gives so much flexibility and the ability to collapse and expand infinitely.

This manual will continue to evolve online, and updates will be frequent as we get back to fleshing out the weaker parts, or adding in new elements from future releases.

Hats off to my co-writers - a really enjoyable experience.

civiCRM, communications

I am working on trying to secure some funding so we can get out and show a wider range of NGOs and community groups what civiCRM has to offer in the way of an OpenSource CRM database. Seems to me that a lot of NGOs end up well and truly handicapped by inadequate or overly expensive contact databases.

Having a streamlined and effective communication system so organisations can deliver the information that their contacts want is hugely helpful.

In particular, being able to send them an email that not only shows them the contact details that are on record, but also providing a link that takes them direct to a page that displays that information means keeping contact details up to date can be a whole lot easier.

The system we have been working with the civiCRM community to extend really does deliver on this.

civiCRM, communications

Having spent some time on the periphery of drupal website developments, mostly in connection with delivering civiCRM databases for clients, I have packed my ‘idiots guide to drupal’ and am heading to Drupal South for the weekend.  I’m looking forward to putting some faces to names and sharing some Canterbury hospitality. Here’s hoping I don’t fall off the steep learning curve.

Open Source, civiCRM, communications

Well it has been a long, long break. Here is a micro-summary of the last few months.

Things ground to a halt as a result of an awesome opportunity to jump the Tasman last September and work on the communications strategy for the Australian Greens’ election campaign. Hard work but really glad I went. Big ups to all those people who made me so welcome. Thank you.

Particular highlights were breaking in to the media ‘cone of silence’ around the Greens in the Rudd v Howard stories. We did this by taking a somewhat in-your-face approach to being closed out of the leaders’ debates. Not something we have had to worry about in MMP New Zealand. Anyhow the decision to run our own leaders’ debate in the same venue with a public audience did get us in to the main stories. Thanks to Bob Brown for believing in the possibilities on that one.

Streaming events proved that even the best technology can fail - thanks goodness for YouTube! And some good lessons were learnt in co-opting facebook ads - talk about quick feedback on creatives!

There was an awesome team to work with, and in particular I have to take my hat off to Mia (you’re awesome!) - you made me so welcome. Also in Canberra, of course, Roland, Bill and Kerrie T. What a great team and a great place. And my hosts. How did you put up with me so long? Thank you so much Jack and Deb.

Max, Lesa, Jon and the rest of the NSW crew - thanks for your persistence, creativity and passion. The Vic Greens with whom I got to spend some good times! On ya! Chris D (who really does look like Beethoven!), Alison, Dinesh, Ian, … and Lily.

The West Aus team also rocked. Alison X (see you in Parliament soon I hope), Rachel and Rachel, and Tim. Shame the SouthPark viral didn’t get out earlier. It was great. (Where is it?)
To the teams in the other states, it was hard yakker but you really all did such an awesome job. The SA and QLD teams really pulled some rabbits out of the hat!

Of course the campaign wouldn’t have been the same without the efforts of the ad agency; hats off to Ben, Rod, Stuart, Sam and the rest of the team at Cyclone. Being able to take up residence in your offices was a breakthrough. Hard work on all of us but we got through it.

And last, but definitely not least, the Senators and the Lead Candidates. Kerry, thanks for dragging me in to this. Sorry you’re looking for a new job but the world is your organic, fair-traded oyster. Sarah and Scott, look forward to seeing you up at the capital. Larissa and Richard, next time maybe - there is always a next time.

communications, politics

Very interesting article by Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future in Gristmill. He asks whether the green narrative focuses too much on doom and gloom.

Recently in my organization, senior staff were sharing the first five minutes of the presentations we give externally, the bit where we explain sustainable development, climate change, and so on to a skeptical audience. The idea was to compare notes on our best presentation techniques. But guess what? We all started off on the negatives. We opened with different variants of “We’re in real trouble, guys.” We then mostly had some graphs, facts, and predictions showing how “we are going to be in even more trouble soon.” Sounds familiar?

He goes on to say

Of course we still need to scare people a bit, to grab the attention. But we risk paralyzing and de-motivating people if that is all we dwell on. When greens do paint visions of the future, they are often utopian, hippie, bucolic, and frankly unbelievable. They either seem to think that everyone will live in some variation of rural France, on a small-holding complete with small vineyard, goat, and squeaky bicycle.

This is a refrain that others have made but I take my hat off to Mike Ward on his campaign site for the Nelson mayoralty for succinctness.

If we can’t have at least as much fun saving the planet as we are having destroying it we just aren’t doing it right.

Good luck on the campaign Mike - hope I can make it over for the celebrations! Mike . . . . . Yes!

communications, politics