Technology for the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector

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Thursday, May 21

eHope: I'm not just a fan!

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Thu 21 May 2009 03:06 PM EDT

When I first heard about eHope, over a year ago, I was excited! Here was yet another great example of how face-to-face relationships, online networking, and heightened awareness of the importance of social capital could be combined in powerful ways. Jeffrey Wood, eHope's founder, is a visionary who is bringing all this together to help communities support people who are facing life-threatening illnesses. I lost no time in calling him up and arranging for him to be a featured guest at the Ethos Roundtable. He came down from Maine to Cambridge for the Ethos session, and impressed us all not only with the wisdom of the eHope model, but with his own spiritual depth.

As many readers of my blog know, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1999. There was no such thing as eHope at that time, so I got by with a lot of help from my wonderful and supportive friends, but the coordination involved was an extra source of stress.

For ten years, there's been no recurrence of cancer, but recently tests confirmed that I have a minor malignancy, and will need surgery. I'm one of the lucky ones - my condition is not at all life-threatening. However, I've been worrying about all the logistics involved in surgery and after care. Yesterday, it occurred to me that I should ask my buddy Jeffrey for some coaching about how I could set up an eHope "Lite" version for myself, so that I could do some of the coordination online. He very graciously called me up today, and offered to work with me to set up a full-fledged eHope community; it turns out that I'm eligible, even though I'm not based in Maine and am not facing a terminal illness.

So now, I'm not just a fan - I'm going to be a client! This is not just a boon for me, but an opportunity to bring eHope to the greater Boston area and raise a wider awareness of what it offers.

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Monday, May 11

Thanks to Yves Dehnel, Easy Peasy provides a solution, although not as easily as I would have thought

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Mon 11 May 2009 04:29 PM EDT

Yves Dehnel of Tech Networks of Boston is my new hero.

As readers of my blog know, I bought an Asus Eee PC 900 in July, but have run into obstacles in trying to use it in my habitual way.

After Twittering about it, blogging about it, going online to various nonprofit technology communities, posting a plaintive request for help to GetSatisfaction, and - yes - even after checking with Asus customer support, I still couldn't install any new drivers or applications on my Asus netbook, and therefore I couldn't use my AT&T mobile broadband with it.

Several people suggested that the version of Linux that comes installed on the Asus Eee PCs as an operating system (Linux Eee PC 1.1.0.66) is very tightly locked down, and that I should replace it with a version of Ubuntu for netbooks called Easy Peasy.

Well, I tried, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm one of those folks who thinks that "computer literacy" in any generic form is a myth, and I try to be brave and admit it when an IT-related task is beyond me.

Having admitted that I couldn't get Easy Peasy installed on my Asus, I took the radical step of mentioning my problem in a face to face conversation. The ever-helpful Tuan Pham of Tech Networks opined that he could probably find someone, and that someone turned out to be my buddy Yves Dehnel, also of Tech Networks.

It turns out that installing Easy Peasy is a three-step simple process, albeit a slight different one than what is described on the download page:

Drop off your Asus at Yves's shop.

Take a phone call from Yves a couple of hours later, so that he can inform you that he's done it. (Don't forget to thank him profusely.)

Return to his shop, and spend a few minutes with him, tweaking the settings so that your Sierra 881 USB connector card works with the Asus. (Don't forget to thank him profusely, once again.)

For me, the real work began at that point: settling down to the effort of acclimating myself to the Easy Peasy operating system and an Asus keyboard.

Now that I'm using that Asus Eee PC 900 for extended periods (and not just for fun), I find that it really does take some acclimation. The Easy Peasy operating system is not much of challenge, but the physical set up of the Asus is. As a touch typist, I have to acquire a new kinesthetic sense of where each key is, and there's something about the touchpad action that's very different.

When I first wrote about my Asus notebook, I said:

"If I had to make the purchase from scratch today, I'd probably choose a newer, cheaper model in the Asus Eee PC line, and I'd opt for Windows XP as the operating system, just to ensure ease of connectivity ."

This is still true. I would never recommend an Asus with a Linux operating system for use in a nonprofit where the staff members weren't burning with curiousity to see for themselves what open source platforms are all about. It's too much trouble for folks who have enough to do with nonprofit programs and operations. An Asus loaded with XP as an operating system would do the job.

But speaking just for myself, I'm glad to have the opportunity to live and work with an open source operating system, especially if colleagues and buddies such as Yves are willing to get my back.

(Full disclosure of financial relationship: TechNetworks of Boston is a client of mine, and I bartered my services in exchange for Yves's. Had I been a paying customer, I would have been charged about $150, which I consider very reasonable.)

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Friday, May 8

Online capacity mapping and resource matching for nonprofits

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Fri 08 May 2009 01:26 PM EDT

Having served as a co-convener of the Ethos Roundtable since 2006, I have finally scheduled myself as a presenter for June 2009:

Tuesday, June 16th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: (yours truly)

I was first inspired to think about one giant web-based tool for capacity mapping and resource matching for nonprofits by a conversation in 2003 with my buddy Tim Gassert. Since then, I've looked for ways to make it happen. Within the last year, some sort of tipping point occurred, and all sorts of esteemed clients and colleagues started pulling me into conversations about pet projects that were closely related to the pipedream that Tim and I had.

I've been actively working on the big picture, and bringing together these folks who are converging on the concept, for about six months. It's clear that this could be a tremendous asset to nonprofits, philanthropies, and communities in the region - at a time when money is tight, it's important to ensure that surplus assets, capacities, and resources do not go unused. It's also clear that this could be many separate projects with clever mash-ups and data interchanges. In the age of XML, it does not have to be a monolith with one owner, one web host, and one platform.

This session will not be a nuts-and-bolts discussion of technical specifications or organizational arrangements, but an exploration of the big picture. Hard times can give us an incentive to collaborate and consolidate in new ways. What if we had web-based tools to help mission-based organizations use every possible resource and meet every possible need? If you're interested in this question, please come and brainstorm with us.

(Full information about the session and directions to the Charles Hotel are available at the Ethos Roundtable's blog.)