An Open Civic Engagement Platform: Plone, Salesforce and Friends

An Open Civic Engagement Platform

A New Generation of Tools That Play Nice Together

Jon Stahl - ONE/Northwest

Chris Johnson - ifPeople

Steve Andersen - ONE/Northwest

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Agenda

1.Intros/warmup
2.Throatclearing
3.Demostrations
4.Discussion
5.Questions


Software Evolution
Parallel and complimentary
trends:

1) Software that lives online

Desktop -->
Client/Server -->
quot;Software as a servicequot;
+Web APIs

2) Software that shares

Programs that do everything
and share with nobody -->

Programs that do one thing well
and assume they need to play
nice with others.
Questions: http://is.gd/tVgk


Monolithic
software


Monolithic software does many things moderately well, but few components are quot;best of breed.quot; No choice.
Tends to be all-or-nothing. Rarely communicates well with others. Raisers Edge is a classic example.

Alternative: Hybrid vigor

(Our friend the Goldendoodle)
An alternative vision: multiple pieces that are independent. Each is chosen because it best fits your needs. The
play nicely together because they all assume they are part of a larger system.

Allows for each piece to evolve independently (and thus more rapdily).

Allows you to not spend money on elements you don't need.

Leverage great work that the market is providing.

Mix open-source, closed-source, custom software and services.

...and many more!


Small pieces, loosely joined can be very powerful

API - Application Programming Interface. An element of a software system that
allows other products to exchange data.

Open API an API that is publicly documented and available without cost to its intended
audiences.

Web Services API a generic term for APIs that are built to be used quot;over the
internetquot; -- by software systems on entirely separate servers.

SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol. A widely used standard for building web
services APIs.

REST - REpresentational State Transfer. Another widely used standard for
building web services APIs. Simpler than SOAP but less powerful in some ways.

CRM - Constituent Relationship Management. A database of people.

CMS - Content Management System. A database-driven website.



Demos


Oregon Environmental Council
Eco-Healthy Child Care



Goals

• Build a database of eco-healthy childcare
providers who’ve completed a certification
checklist
• Connect parents with eco-healthy child
care providers



A quot;reverse mulletquot;
web app
A fancy front-end, but all
business in back.

: A Plone website presents
data stored in
Salesforce.com


Finding childcare providers on a Google map,
by state and city.


New childcare providers can request a
certification packet.


Provider information flows directly into Salesforce

Inquiry Handling System

Plone + Salesforce



Van Jones


Problem:
200+
requests per
month



Goals

• Allow efficient “team coverage” of
speaking, information and media
requests.
• Accumulate a database of interested
people for long term organizing &
followup.
• Track and report on all of this activity



Plone and
Salesforce to
the rescue



All requests
come in
through a form
• Built in Plone
• Easy to edit
• Dumps directly to
Salesforce



Request dashboard in Salesforce


A single request


Send a templated email response - fast!


Online Donations
Plone + Salesforce


Goal: Grow online revenue

• Connect donors more
intimately with impact their
contribution has
• Make the giving process
easier
• Make tracking and
reporting on giving easier



Example product page


Shopping cart and additional donations


Checkout = Valuable Information


User data

04/23/09


data

order

payment

04/23/09


data

order

payment

contact


 opportunity

 dona1on details
04/23/09


Dumped into unverified contacts


Contact record with donation


Donation details include products


Verified Contacts Now in the Loop

• Added to printed newsletter (managed by Conga)
• Added to email list (managed by VerticalResponse)



All web donations roll up to campaign report


Strengths and Weaknesses



Strengths
Platforms with a future: hosted apps constantly
upgrading, open source has strong support.
Low entry cost, pay only for what you eat.
High end tools provide lots of headroom for growth

Weaknesses
Demands rigorous understanding of your processes
Easy to underestimate implementation & learning
effort
Multiple moving parts require coordination


Chris

What will it cost?


• Basic websites + simple integration: $10k-20k
and up. 3-4 months.

• Basic CRM database $8-15k and up. 3-4 months.
o Wildcard: data migration

• Email broadcasting & online activism: $1k-2k
setup, plus ongoing costs ($50/month and up).
1-2 months.

• Custom integration functionality: varies widely.


Steve + Chris

Making
engagement
platform projects
successful

Stakeholders

Articulating requirements

Chunking/phasing


Stakeholder involvement: this will involve your whole organization! Be prepared to have to deal with
o
organizational change, challenges, and diplomacy (aka, the technology is the easy part!)
 Product Owner: someone in the organization with authority to decide, point of reference to
consultant(s) throughout project, determines priorities.
 Stakeholders: cross-functional internal stakeholders; may also include external stakeholder. Involv
throughout process.
 This is hard! Good consultants will expect to help guide you through this.
o Articulating your requirements
 Know where you want to get to, but be open about the road
 Avoid pre-maturely articulating requirements
 Work with consultant to articulate what you really need
 Focus on your goals, your mission, your business processes, and how you imagine new systems
helping you improve your business processes.
 Holistic projects often raise deep and uncomfortable questions about what your organization does,
how it does it and why. Be prepared to grapple.
o Chunking/phasing projects (web, CRM, etc.)
 All things being equal (and sometimes they're not), try to start with your CRM and work outwards f
there. (Why? Relationships with people are the heart of your work.)
 Discovery scope
 CRM
 Website
 Email broadcasting
 Iterate - work back through elements and develop additional, discrete features and
improvements or integrate new tools into your mix.
 You have limited attention; try to focus on one thing at a time.
 You will learn as you go! Allow time to consolidate your gains and learn from experience before
introducing additional changes.

A holistic approach
can be uncomfortable.


Roles and Skills You Need

Skills
Roles

• Project management
• Executive
• Ability to investigate &
resources, leadership
articulate your
support & vision
business requirements
• Program staff who
• Collaboration and
will be using these
negotiation
systems daily
• Operations & technical
• Communications
implementation
• Organizers
• Ongoing training/
• Fundraising
support
• IT


Finding vendors
who can balance
and juggle.

You need people who can juggle AND balance.

Any vendors in the room?

More information
Plone: plone.org
Consultants and example sites: plone.net

Salesforce.com:
http://salesforcefoundation.org (donations, info)
AppExchange: http://sites.force.com/appexchange

Plone-Salesforce Integration:
http://groups.google.com/group/plonesf
http://snurl.com/plonesfdoc (documentation)

ONE/Northwest: http://onenw.org
twitter: @onenw @jonstahl @gokubi

ifPeople: http://ifpeople.net
twitter: @nomadslounge

Thanks, Flickr users!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/taylormiles/601779414/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55079705@N00/2869549151/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/senorwences/2366892425/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenery/3365081/


Questions

An Open Civic Engagement Platform: Plone, Salesforce and Friends

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