Usability March 26, 2006 By Steve Fafel

Last night I had a discussion with a new friend at Intuit about Intuit QuickBooks Point of Sale. I'm pretty straightforward and unbridled; I say what I think and did last night. I think QuickBooks could be simpler, as good as it is. And so does he, I'm sure, as do many people at Intuit. It's a great product with lots of stuff, but it's become so big it's easy to get lost in it. It's still easier than any other accounting software package. It was great to meet him and his family, and the homecooked meal was a nice respite from hotel food.

We're working on a redesign of GiftWorks to make some things more obvious. Most things are, but as I've said before, we've missed it on a few things. Today I met up with Vic Cho in downtown Burlingame; Vic is an adviser to the company and a friend, and after chatting and then looking at some pianos he went on his way and I stopped into the Apple store.

I've lusted after an iPod for some time. Not so much that I want to be part of the whole Apple thing--I don't--but just because the design and navigation are supposed to be very slick. I tried a bunch of the computers, including the new dualcore notebook. I agree with the critics; "MacBook" isn't a great name, but it does get the main Apple brand back into the mobile lineup.

I tried the iPod and figured out the navigation pretty quickly. What I couldn't find--and looked for--was how to adjust the volume. After a few minutes of trying a bunch of things, I finally asked for help. A very well-versed, young sales guy informed me--move your finger around the center navvy thing when the song is showing. I said oh, ok, easy enough, but it wasn't obvious. He said it had a quick-start manual and they offered Getting Started classes in the morning  before the store opened.

We're trying to make things as obvious as possible in GiftWorks. Sometimes we don't follow PC software conventions, because frankly, they aren't obvious. We have Getting Started Classes, and a very thorough manual. But I suspect with a few months of work on usability, we can make everything obvious and easy to use, not just most of it. GiftWorks is really great--we do love it. But we're also tough critics, like many of you, and through that process of paying attention to details and your feedback, we make very good software even better. It's still the best fundraising software for most nonprofits, but we'll make it better.

So here's the story: GiftWorks 2007 is all about improvements. Not necessarily more features, just more obvious paths to existing features. The obvious stuff where you can't believe we missed something given how good GiftWorks really is. In May, we release GiftWorks Volunteers, which will make it obvious and easy to manage volunteers and the time they contribute. And in late May, we'll release an improved QuickBooks integration, so it's obvious and easy.

let me know what you think we should do to make GiftWorks easier to use by clicking on Comments below. Thanks!

Fare Thee Well, Seattle March 24, 2006 By Steve Fafel

A fine conference. I recommend NTEN conferences for any techie and even some Eexecutive Directors. For us, it was great to meet some of our customers, some friends in the nonprofit tech world, and of course our consultant partners.

But there's one thing I think is missing, and that's best practices of nonprofit management. Tech and management are so tightly related. Tech should be a reflection of business processes and mission, and driven by the organization's mission and operating goals. How do do things is important, but the Why that drives the How is really important to include.

Well, it looks like it's time to get on the flight to San Francisco. I'll be there for another 5 days, then off to DC to meet with United Way of America, and then, finally, finally, home.

NTEN: hosted model? March 23, 2006 By Steve Fafel

At ChiliSoft, Dave and Chris and I built and promoted an application server--software that runs code on a web server. We were very much a server company. Our inclination was to build GiftWorks as a web application;  I built the lousy prototype for it as a web application for Witness as a volunteer, and then moved them to another vendor I won't name here. That project was a good argument against volunteers building software for nonprofits (lol).

We decided to build GiftWorks as a desktop application that works with web applications and web services seamlessly. Why? 80% of NPOs we surveyed didn't trust their data out there on the web somewhere. We also liked the responsivenesss of desktop software, and felt we could give the benefits of a hosted model along with the power of the desktop model. So we built the Hybrid Web Platform, which we call Graphite internally.

But we were serving our own customers, not ourselves, and we signed a year long contract with a web application provider for our sales, er, software. And it was not a great experience. It would slow down monthly, and there were several outages where we were just dead in the water. So we switched over to GiftWorks for tracking customers, and made modifications to it. And now we don't have outages anymore.

During that same time, we've considered offering a fully hosted model ourselves, or at least partially hosted. And we've made progress toward that end, with the upcomign release of GiftWorks Server, which is a more scalable database, to something like a gagillion records. In tests, we can use it over the web with the GiftWorks desktop client. Pretty cool, but we're not packaging that part of it--yet.

So do you trust your data out "there", out on the web? Do you trust and want a hosted model? Let me know in Comments.

PS: Shawn from Blackbaud is actually Shaun. No w, he says, thank you very much. BTW--he's working on a pretty neat version of RE, due out sometime next year.

NTEN SEATTLE! March 22, 2006 By Steve Fafel

I'm definitely not sleepless! We're happy to be here--Megan and Sarah are here working the conference, while I'm talking with nonprofits and partners about the Next Big Thing. Seattle is damp and cold, as always, but it's good to be back to see some friends from the ChiliSoft days.

And yes,  I ran into Shawn Sullivan from Blackbaud last night...and nothing to report. Except he doesn't have nearly as much gray in his beard as I do and we're the same age. But then again, Blackbaud is a publicly traded company with the 5-day work week. So Shawn, when are you going to start blogging? Keeping it to yourself is so, so... RE:90's. ;)

Fundraising, Manitou Style March 13, 2006 By Steve Fafel

My sister Jenny works for a land trust in Manitou Springs, and has really latched onto the house party method of fundraising. You sign up your key supporters--top donors, board members, employees, volunteers--and each has a house party and asks their friends for donations. It's probably a good idea to stack the room with lit and/or a presentation.

If 30 attend and contribute $20 each, that's $600, and hopefully the supporter kicks in for the food and beverage. That's $600. Multiple that by 10 board members, 5 employees, 5 volunteers, and 10 key donors, and you've raised $18,000. Not bad at all. Is this something you could do?

NTEN Conference March 6, 2006 By Steve Fafel

Every year we attend an NTEN conference. This year we're limiting our attendance to the national one, which is a great event for nonprofits. For us, it's a chance to meet with other vendors, get some great feedback from customers, and visit with our friends at NTEN.

This year's event is in Seattle, and I'll be joining Megan and Sarah for at least a day, in between meetings over in Redmond and checking out the old ChiliSoft office in Bellevue. I used to live on Capitol Hill at the far north end. I remember the WTO demonstrations and how they spilled into Capitol Hill, with police chasing demonstrators and pumping the air full of tear gas. And all I wanted was to get my Thai food and go home, but got a faceful of gas instead.

Hoepfully the NTEN attendees are better behaved than both the police and demonstrators that day! I do't miss Seattle's rain-mist-rain-mist weather pattern and low clouds, but I will enjoy seeing some old friends. If you'd like to join us at the conference, click here to register at the NTEN website.