Office 365 for Nonprofits: Recent Updates

Since its launch in June 2011, Office 365 has gone through many changes. For example, its look and feel was significantly upgraded, so it looks more like Office 2013. Office 365 has also simplified the application and approval process for nonprofits to access their free plans. You may have also seen that Skydrive is now called Onedrive, and now Office is being offered online. These are just a few of many changes, and there will be more in the future. For now, I would like to share some key changes that could be useful for your organization.

March 13-15: Nonprofit Technology Conference

We are thrilled that the Nonprofit Technology Conference, also known as NTC, is happening in DC this year! NTC is a three-day gathering, which brings together nonprofit professionals to collaborate, innovate, and maximize effectiveness. Check out all the NTC events you can find us at.

Leveraging Technology for Social Good

Leveraging Technology for Social Good – David Deal, CEO, shares his top tips for enabling effective organizations with technology.

Webinar: February 27, 2014 – IT Budgeting for Nonprofits: Slides

This webinar from February 27th, 2014, provides an overview of an Excel-based IT budgeting approach for nonprofits that enables organizations to take a proactive approach to managing IT investment.
Key Takeaways & Insights:
o How to develop a detailed IT Budget based on types, categories, and classes of IT spend
o How a detailed IT budget can supports better cash flow and financial management
o How to segregate mandatory from discretionary IT spend for organizational agility
o Understand IT hardware lifecycle risk and refresh cycle impacts
o Understand common software licensing models and cost model impacts
o Look at managed service providers and cloud computing and their impact to the budget
o Switching the IT paradigm from cost to investment and tying to organizational strategy
Donny Shimamoto is a recognized national expert in IT management and international author/speaker on business intelligence initiatives. Donny helps many nonprofits by bridging accounting and IT to strengthen organizational governance and risk management, improve business processes through technology, and increase the effectiveness of decision through business intelligence and evidence-based management.

Apple Security Bug: How To Address It

As most of you have heard, a significant security bug was announced on Friday affecting Apple’s desktop (OS X 10.9) and mobile (iOS 6 & 7) operating systems. This bug allows an attacker to intercept secure/encrypted traffic without detection (what is known as a “man-in-the-middle” attack).
In order for this attack to work, the attacker most likely needs to be on the same wifi network as the victim. Because most home and work wifi networks are secure, you are only vulnerable while connected to public/open networks.

Microsoft Adrift

There is an old Southern saying that nicely sums up Microsoft’s current direction: “You got to dance with them what brung you.” Microsoft’s success as a software company is due largely to their dominance with the Windows Operating System; an OS that dates back to the mid–80s. 30 years is an impressive achievement in IT. I’ll spare you the gory details of that history which makes for a fascinating (if geeky) read in this wonderful Ars Technica history of OS/2.
In short, everything that Microsoft achieved over 3 decades was accomplished by focusing relentlessly on dominating the Operating System (OS) with Windows and then building an iron curtain of integration and consolidation around the OS.

Nonprofit Tech Picks: IT Budgeting, Gadgets & Salesforce

Check out the latest Nonprofit Tech Picks, including the NTEN Happy Hour on Feb. 26, IT Budgeting webinar on Feb. 27, Idealware’s Saleforce report and TechSoup’s Gadget Guide.

Getting Ready for 14NTC

The tech sector has been experiencing a variety of significant and (pardon the cliche) “disruptive” changes. Changes that have roiled the IT Industry, putting well established companies such as Nokia and RIM (the makers of BlackBerry devices) nearly out of business, and calling into question once-dominant firms like Microsoft and Dell.
These changes are also posing serious challenges for IT Departments. IT Leaders are trying to plan for an environment that seems to be changing every 6 months. Which solutions are still going to be around over the next 5 years? Which approaches to managing IT are going to be relevant? How is the landscape going to change?

Webinar: Feb. 27, 2014 – IT Budgeting for Nonprofits: Slides

Join us for a special webinar on IT Budgeting for Nonprofits with guest presenter Donny Shimamoto. IT costs are often a mix of equipment refresh cycles, convoluted software licenses, and often confusing IT service provider proposals. Add into the mix, cloud computing and managed service providers and how do you even start to develop an IT budget?
This session will provide an overview of an Excel-based IT budgeting approach that enables organizations to take a more proactive approach to managing their IT investment.

Webinar: January 30, 2014 – Cloud File Sharing: Slides & Audio

As nonprofits continue to migrate their mission critical information systems to the cloud, files and documents remain firmly, begrudgingly, stuck to the local area network. Industry attempts to solve this dilemma have led to a plethora of possible options from SharePoint to Box, DropBox to Egnyte, SugarSync to JungleDisk. The wide variety of options contain subtle differences, pitfalls and strengths. In this webinar hosted on January 30, 2014, Johan Hammerstrom, COO, and Matthew Eshleman, CTO, surveyed the best options and looked to the future. They explored the various UX, security and functionality pros and cons of all of these solutions. Check out the webinar slides and recording.