This past week, I have caught up on a lot of traffic about a new book called Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits and a supporting article both by Heather McLeod Grant & Leslie R. Crutchfield. I am also working on looking at how we organize and structure iMIS moving forward for the UX Team. The article refocused some of my thoughts.

There has been a trend in the non-profit world to adopt more for-profit business practices to succeed. I have seen, as an example, more people with advanced degrees and experience in the for-profit world recruited into customer organizations. I have often wondered about the overall impact of this direction, whether over the long-term it would bear greater results or just somehow make it more mechanical, lose a little bit of the magic. I am an idealist and I want to be believe that through my work at ASI, I am affecting social change and having an impact on the greater good, regardless of how small or indirect. It’s one of the main reasons I work here. I guess, like most relationships, there are benefits to both the non-profit and for-profit sectors from these trends.

For those of you who enjoyed the web 2.0 - The Machine is using Us video posted on YouTube by Mike Wesch, a Kansas State Professor. He has added another video on information categorization - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM. At the same time he posted another video called A Vision of Students Today - which is an interesting look into Gen Y - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o. E

Found this interesting article on Google Page Rank - http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/06/05/google-pagerank-what-do-we-re...

Article on keeping data safe in a SaaS CM model -

http://thecontentwrangler.com/article/web_based_content_management_is_yo...

I recently ordered a pair of clogs from zappos - don't laugh, livng in sweden would hook you too. This morning, about two weeks after my purchase I received an email again thanking me for my purchase and asking me to comment on my purchase so that others could benefit from my experience. None of which is really out of the ordinary in today's market. My interest was raised once I followed the link...i know this isn't rocket science but, they took the time to not only allow me to comment free form - but prompted me with questions regarding the the product quality, look, comfort, and fit with survey style questions.

So i recently have been trying to find someone to fix a window in my 'historic home' - which is really difficult since these days everyone wants to replace windows (i'll stop because this is a topic which could become lengthy)..in frustration I turned to Angie's list after hearing an ad on NPR which jogged my memory about this resource. What can i say, i found it super easy to use, and very informative in terms of learning about other's experiences. Not only that, but i found a contractor who specializes in older homes and does just about everything under the sun ... and the best is, he never advertises, only gets business word of mouth. A great example of the web as connected network that can seem small and local. It works on so many levels, the business model, the perceived benefit and of course the overall UI and experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl=

Went to session with Bradley Horowitz - VP of Technology Development Group for Yahoo! and heard him talk about the acquisiton of flickr and how to lower barriers to partipation in collaborative environments...all very interesting...but then he started talking about Yahoo! Answers.

As product manager for eSeries/eCM, i am on a daily basis both intrigued and haunted by search. It's the inevitable siren calling - the lure of a better and more precise search experience. I hear it from customers, partners, anyone who does anything on any website....My favorite from back in my consulting days has to be the inevitable comparison to google where I would hear...

Just back from User Experience Week 2006 - which is a great intersection of practioners/industry experts from both profit/non-profit worlds of user experience/interaction designers/product managers/information architects....anyone involved in excperience design. more on conference to come as I get time.

Attended a great session by Chris Conley of Gravity Tank, ITT Professor about how we have really lost teh ability to work together creatively and collaboratively with organizations. I'm curious to hear your thoughts?

This Summer's feature article of the Stanford Social Innovation Review is a great read - and great insights into our market

What Business Execs Don’t Know -- but Should -- About Nonprofits
Business leaders play vital roles in the nonprofit sector -- as board members, donors, partners, and even executives. Yet all too often they underestimate the unique challenges of managing nonprofit organizations. In this article, 11 executives who have played leadership roles in both for-profits and nonprofits reveal the critical differences between the two, and suggest ways that business and nonprofit leaders can use this information to create a more effective social sector.