At Ushahidi we're using Basecamp for a lot of project management activities.  It's a good tool, but we've found that it just doesn't cut it as a knowledge repository.  We knew we were going to have to find a wiki engine to use for our knowledgebase, but didn't realize how many options (good and bad) that there are in the wild world web.

 

Wiki Software or Hosted Wiki?

Steve Wright, Program and Technical Director of the Salesforce.com Foundation talks to us about how social benefit organizations are improving their operations by using Salesforce.com to gather and understand data.

As many of you know, TechSoup, NetSquared's mother organization, has an awesome service called TechSoup Stock where qualified organizations are eligible to apply for donated technology products at the lowest possible cost.

For those of you who have ideas for location based mashups with social impact, check out Make Mashups Using Your Own Data with geoXtract by Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb:

"GeoXtract is a powerful tool that allows you to integrate your own data with Google Maps or Google Earth. Using this desktop application, you can create a personalized map with no programming experience required."

In case you didn't see it last week, David Geilhufe posted about a new donation program NetSuite is offering. David is the Program Manager for NetSuite's philanthropy program, NetSuite Giving.

NetSuite Giving is accepting Requests for Applications till March 21, 2008 from US, Canadian and UK charities, green startups, Fair Trade businesses, and social entrepreneurs.

Grantees will receive NetSuite software and NetSuite employee volunteers to help them effectively use the donation.

To apply for a NetSuite product donation, go to: http://shopping.netsuite.com/giving

Next week, at Net Tuesday San Francisco, Allen Gunn of Aspiration and Social Source Commons, will facilitate an interactive session about finding, utilizing and maintaining software for your nonprofit.

Come share your points of pain in finding and utilizing appropriate software for your organization, discuss software solutions, and join the Social Source Commons. Social Source Commons is a place to share lists of software tools that you already use, gain knowledge and support, and discover new tools. It was a Featured Project at the NetSquared Conference in May 2007.

Tuesday, November 13
TechSoup/CompuMentor
525 Brannan St. Ste. 300
San Francisco, CA, 94107
6-8 PM
Free
RSVP on Upcoming or Meetup

Aspiration’s Executive Director, Allen Gunn, has over twenty years of software development and capacity building expertise. He has shepherded large software projects through all stages of development: from inception, design, development, and testing to deployment, support and marketing in environments ranging from start-up to large corporation to nonprofit.

Let me know if you're interested in a preprint I did for the Institute for the Future's Ten Year Forecast on the financial space over the next ten years.

I talk about alternative capital, intangible assets, and corporate social responsibility movements, etc.

I'm listed as being associated with my start-up, Civv.us, which is very early stage community enterprise (probably for-profit, because I want to attend specifically to alternative capital valuation).

Other than the capital component, I have expertise particularly in the education, k-12, community spaces in the US.

My blog:
http://kitode.typepad.com

What are the best social web tools for the developing world, and what should software developers keep in mind when creating software for international organizations? Teresa Crawford shares her tips from her work as a strategic technology consultant out of Washington, D.C. in this transcript of my interview with her from the NetSquared Podcast that I posted about last week.

Software does improve productivities, but it costs much money.  This is really an issue for small businesses and nonprofit organizations.  NeneTech recently developed a new product named Nenest Form Server, which is targeted to solve this issue.

The principle idea of Nenest Form Serveris to make all small businesses and nonprofits to share computer hardware, software, labors, and other IT resources; thus the total cost can be split into many small fractions.