Patrick Shaw’s Weblog

I just finished running the Seattle Half Marathon. It’s my third half marathon, and my 10th overall –and for grins, I thought I’d review my running log to see if different training patterns impact my speed.

Turns out –they do – by a LOT!

In both 1996, and 1998 I ran my speediest times.

And in 2006 and 2007 – a pair of my slowest.

I took a look at my total mileage for each of those years – and – no real surprise – here’s what I found:

• In 1996, I ran 1,487 miles.
• In 1998, I ran 1,215 miles
• In 2006, I ran 708 miles
• And in 2007, I ran 558 miles

Sure – I’m older – but I also trained at about half as much – and half of the effort resulted in a slower time.

So – what does this have to do with websites and databases? I think it means that you need to apply your effort to your outcomes. Here are some questions you might ask yourself:

• How much time have you devoted to fresh content on your website?
• How many new contacts have you entered in your database?
• Have you asked those new contacts to support your work?
• Have you reviewed your website traffic to see if you are attracting new visitors?

And – after each question – ask yourself how your results have turned out. I bet (just like my running) – if you didn’t add contacts, fresh content and so on – you didn’t do as well as you hoped.

In 2009, with a tightening economy – I think the smartest thing each of us can do is to tie concrete efforts to the results we want to achieve:

• If you are a fundraising professional – write more grants and ask more individuals for gifts. (Actually – ask for those individual gifts FIRST – studies show that corporate and grant funding is harder to get in a recession)
• If you manage communications or messaging or outreach at your agency – ensure that your website has fresh content, that you link to relevant sites (and ask them to do the same) and regularly review your site traffic to figure out how to do better. In short – write and publish great content more often!

Well - there’s a LOT - but the big news so far is about Sites, Facebook, and Amazon.

Salesforce has made partnerships and built tools for Facebook and Amazon - and also rolled out their Sites tool - a way to let you build sites using Visual Force, but connected to and powered by your data.

My friend Steve at ONE Northwest has a great blog posting up already, which you should read!

The possibility is enormous: Using your Salesforce data to power a website, using social networking to engage your customers, and using Amazon services to power payments, store data or to deliver web services.

The proof will be in the pricing model. Overall though - very exciting!

Well - there’s a LOT - but the big news so far is about Sites, Facebook, and Amazon.

Salesforce has made partnerships and built tools for Facebook and Amazon - and also rolled out their Sites tool - a way to let you build sites using Visual Force, but connected to and powered by your data.

My friend Steve at ONE Northwest has a great blog posting up already, which you should read!

The possibility is enormous: Using your Salesforce data to power a website, using social networking to engage your customers, and using Amazon services to power payments, store data or to deliver web services.

The proof will be in the pricing model. Overall though - very exciting!

It’s no surprise to anyone reading this here that NPower Seattle is a big fan of Plone, the open source content management system that helps us deliver huge features to our customers without building from scratch. As a matter of fact, I attended the World Wide Plone Conference a couple of years ago, have been on the circuit with Idealware talking about Plone (and other CMS tools) and recently send one of my senior web developers to the World Wide Plone Conference in DC.

Well - now some of that magic is going to be happening right here locally. Our friends and colleagues at ONE/NW are hosting the World Plone Day, and you should attend!

Here’s what you need to know about the event and how to sign up:

AGENDA

Speakers

• Jon Stahl, Plone Foundation Board President
• Sam Knox, ONE/Northwest Support Manager

Talks

Plone: How it helps you build great websites

A brief overview of what Plone is all about — led by Jon Stahl, Plone Foundation Board President

Plone for Content Editors: Learning and Teaching the Essentials

Plone is often touted as a great CMS for non-technical users because it is easy and attractive for content managers to add, update, and maintain content. While this is largely true, there are a number of essential skills that one must learn in order to become comfortable with all aspects of posting and editing content in Plone. Added to that, there are a number of ‘best practices’ to learn about writing for the web and using the Plone interface that can substantially increase the chances of a satisfactory experience with Plone. Sam Knox, Support Manager for the non-profit consulting organization ONE/Northwest, will present an end-user focused training with ideas and advice for both end-users and the consultants who work with them. If you are new to Plone, or are often engaged with those who are, this session is for you.

So that we have enough food & beverage, free swag from Google, and can tailor the talks appropriately, please RSVP.

LOGISTICS

World Plone Day
Friday, November 7th, 5:00 P.M. to 7:00ish P.M.
ONE/Northwest
1402 Third Ave, Suite 1000
Seattle WA
Directions at:
http://onenw.org/about/contact-us

RSVP at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ndrYO87_2fwkvwtUq6z1BH_2fg_3d_3d

Tip of the hat to Smiley Cat for posting a great link about website statistics, search engine optimization, marketing effectivness and more.

Well worth a read!

We’ve been implementing websites for nonprofits for a long time, and we’ve been using Plone as a CMS for about three years. It’s no surprise that over that three year span - our websites are getting better and better, Plone is getting better and better - and sites cost a bit more, too. Here’s some of the why:

When we first started, there was a lot we didn’t know - so - as we learned how to implement effectively in Plone - we wrote off a lot of our initial costs to that learning curve. Some of those items were true learning - we had to acquire skills in web hosting, in writing user agreements, in understanding the open source model and more.

But some of those costs were related to implementing hard designs - and that hasn’t changed!

Here are some things that we’re doing now:

• We test to make sure that your website renders well in IE6, IE7, and in Firefox. IE7 wasn’t out when we started, and Firefox was barely on anyone’s radar. Now we have IE8 on the way, the browser by Google (called Chrome) and Firefox 3 to get ready for.
• We implement one (if not two) analytic tools to make sure that you can measure site traffic
• We add additional tools that you can use, such as Plone Form Generator -a tool that lets you create forms for visitors to fill out and send to you
• We create "quick tip" documentation sheets to go along with our overall documentation
• We’ve implemented a cache scheme that makes your site render more quickly

And there’s a lot more. On top of THAT - our customers are asking for more, too:

• Deeply tiered permission structures so that board members, volunteers, and others can view restricted content
• Connecting to Salesforce.com databases to display and get information
• Expanded typography, using Flash and other tools, so that your website isn’t "stuck" using standard website fonts only
• Custom widget building, such as for a Resource Library, highly customized Calendars, stylized blogs
• Extended tools for tracking Search Engine Optimization

And there’s more of THAT, too!

We’re still able to implement highly affordable websites, if that’s what you want and need. We’ve recently helped a pair of customers move their old website (couldn’t edit them) to Plone, keeping much of their existing design. And we’ve had a few customers pick an already designed site (so the feature set and design didn’t have any moving pieces) and re-use with their own color scheme and content.

So - there are a lot of options. After three years (and just about 50 sites) - we’re excited about the future of Plone and how nonprofits can gain access to editing and posting content with it!

Helping you quickly enter and edit great content!

That’s it. Don’t get me wrong - Plone is HUGELY featured, and it integrates very nicely. But I think it is the printing press of the decade, if you get what I mean. When Martin Luther nailed his treatise on the church door in Wittenberg - it wasn’t the content of his note that was radical -it was that he was able to use the printing press to evangelize (no pun intended) his message:

The printing press is discovered and put into action in 1450. … Luther would have just been one more reformer in a small area if it had not been for the printing press. But thanks to the printing press, Martin Luther became the bestseller throughout the empire. He out-published all of his Catholic opponents. … He discovered the power of the press in ways that no one else had used it up to that point: everything from woodcuts being used in a polemical way, ditties and rhymes. He mastered this new medium; he used it to spread and turn what would have been a local affair into an international movement. ..

Plone can do that for you - but you have to have a communication plan, you have to know how to write for the web, and you have to know your audience. And (most of all) you need to regularly provide content updates to your website.

When you consider moving to a content management system such as Plone - make sure you START with an effective communication plan, that you identify the features of your website (NOT the visual design elements) that are most important, and implement your visual design in such a way that you further your goals, rather then just look pretty!

Many of our customers use existing website designs or have their own website designers. Some are professionals with a lot of experience in the field, and some are just getting started with web design. In both cases, one of the first questions that needs an answer has to do with the type of design - fixed or fluid. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

This is further complicated by the fact that you can’t control the way a site visitor has configured their monitor and browser! So - while you might really WANT ever visitor to only see a single page (no scrolling) on your home page - you only have a limited capacity to make that happen. Your visitor might have a tiny monitor (think cell phone) or a huge one. And it might be in portrait or landscape mode. And they might size their browser window up or down, or make is tall and skinny or wide and fat - and you don’t get to pick!

You DO get to pick in general though -and that’s where the fixed vs. fluid conversation comes in.

In a nutshell:

• Fixed: This is a design that has a fixed pixel count - and if you adjust your browser window -the content doesn’t change. So - if you make your browser window smaller - then you have to scroll right and left, or up and down.
• Fluid: This is a design that is based on percentages -so that when you re-size your browser window - the whole website resizes to use all of the available space.

Here are some quick links to additional articles about fixed vs. fluid design:

http://www.flyte.biz/resources/newsletters/04/12-fluid-v-fixed-web-pages.php

http://www.destroyallmonsters.biz/articles/guidelines-for-designers/fixed-versus-fluid/

http://www.wolf-howl.com/random-thoughts/fluid-fixed-and-1024-resolutions/

We’re in a changing world. The clunky CRT monitors of a few years ago are fading quickly - replaced by skinner flat panel monitors. Overall - that’s a good thing - they use less space and less energy and can be easier on the eyes!

But we’re in a world without a clear standard when it comes to sizing up your website. When you implement a new website, you’ll need to choose a size for your website that will meet the needs of most of your constituents. There aren’t a lot of terrific demographics out there to help, either - so this may very well be a bit of a guessing game for you. Do your stakeholders have older  CRT’s? Maybe in the 15 to 17 inch size? Perhaps they have one of the first flat panels - perhaps also in the 15-17 inch size?

But maybe they have a newer flat panel - more of the rectangular shape? Mine is like that - it’s a 19 inch monitor - but it’s long on the bottom (about 17 inches) and about 10 inches wide.  That means long-ish spreadsheets are dreamy to look at, while some websites seem to have a LOT of white space!

Here’s a quick grid to help you size up your website dimensions:

Page widths available (in pixels):

•     600 (suitable for 640×480)
•    720 (suitable for 800×600)
•    780 (just about suitable for 800×600)
•    840 (suitable for 1024×768)
•    900 (suitable for 1024×768)
•    960 (suitable for 1024×768)

Kudos to my senior website consultant Jesse Snyder for the research and to PE Ideas on Web Design for the details!

A tip of the hat to my brother Frank for sending along this article from Slate regarding how people are reading (or, perhaps more importantly, NOT reading) on the web.

This article is well worth the read - and while it is about reading on the web - there are some great tips for web design, too:

• Use short paragraphs
• Use an easy to read font such as Verdana
• Have ONE idea per paragraph

(Here’s the article that Slate refers to - it’s written by Jakob Nielson, and is called "How Users Read On The Web")

This is important stuff, because our expectations haven’t lined up with reality in this area - it reminds me of the "donate now" hopes from the mid 1990’s.

Nonprofits thought that a simple donate button would revolutionize their fundraising - and it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong there is a LOT of potential in both the donate now button and that hope that you can easily connect in a meaningful way with your stakeholders. But there is a LOT of work involved in both.