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Community IT Innovators will be moving to a new location.  Our new address starting December 1, 2014 will be:
1101 14th Street NW
Suite 830
Washington, DC 20005

When I first started at Community IT 15 years ago, we were a handful of tech-minded do-gooders, hoping to find a way to help the world with our unique talents and skills. At the time, we were renting 3 small rooms on the top floor of an aging mansion in Columbia Heights.
As our business grew and we added staff, those 3 small rooms were no longer enough, so we started looking for other office space. We were fortunate to find a building on U Street that was being renovated after being empty since 1968. In September 2000, we left Columbia Heights.

The technology sector continued its pace of rapid change in 2014, a trend that will only continue as we head into 2015. How is the technology landscape changing? What impact will this have on nonprofit organizations? How can your organization approach these changes in a way that is appropriate and effective?
Join Community IT Innovators’ President Johan Hammerstrom and Chief Technology Officer Matthew Eshlemen as they provide a broad overview of the changes that are having the greatest impact on nonprofits.

Last week, Palo Alto Networks reported the discovery of new malware that targets iOS and OS X, the operating systems used by Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac devices. Historically, malware and viruses have been directed at Microsoft Windows and its 90% install base. The growing use of Apple devices will start to put them at greater risk.
WireLurker is likely the first of what will be a growing array of malware targeting iOS and OS X. We may look back on it as the canary in the coal mine for end users and IT administrators alike.

Requests for Proposals (RFPs) are a controversial topic in the nonprofit sector. While governmental and corporate organizations use them regularly as a tool to evaluate products and services, their use in our sector is haphazard. I spoke recently about the RFP process and how it could work for us at the 2014 Nonprofit Technology Conference. My slides from that talk and a blog post outlining my key arguments in favor of RFPs are available online. But a recent conversation on NTEN’s DC community list really summed up the topic.

The growing ubiquity of computing devices, whether it is a home computer or a personal smartphone, means that more and more staff are using their personal devices to do work. This now common phenomenon often goes by the shorthand BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

The proliferation of online tools for e-marketing, social engagement, fundraising, team-raising, and event management have left everyone confused as to which product does what part of Nonprofit CRM well and how to integrate them effectively. Join Community IT Innovators for a FREE webinar on Nov. 20 where our nonprofit CRM experts-in-residence from build Consulting will discuss two recent announcements which have excited the nonprofit community and left us hopeful that perhaps both innovation and clarity might come to us soon: Blackbaud announced Raiser’s Edge NXT as its next generation of fundraising software and The Salesforce Foundation announced the formation of NGO Connect, a collection of apps on the Salesforce platform targeted for nonprofits.

ITIL is the industry standard and widely used all over the world to deliver and manage IT Services. ITIL emphasizes that the development of IT Services should be value driven in a way that always aligns to core business requirements.

Another security vulnerability is in the news today. This time it’s dramatically called “SandWorm,” an allusion to a creature in the film DUNE. It’s an attack based on a Windows vulnerability that has been used by Russian based hackers to attack NATO, EU, Telecommunications and Energy related computer networks for digital espionage. The security firm iSightPartners identified this threat and worked with Microsoft on the security vulnerability.

This part 2 piece provides answers to Community IT’s most frequently received questions about using SharePoint as file server.