Blogging

Informational and administrative posts about this blog

Blog Quandary

I am very excited to announce that this website is being redesigned professionally by the best web designer I know, Eve Simon. What you’re looking at right now (assuming you’re reading this in September of 2023) is a website that I designed. Having worked with and for lawyers most of my life, I know the adage about fools representing themselves, and I’m here to tell you that the same is true of consultants designing their own websites. In preparation for the new site (which I expect to have up sometime next month, I’ll make a lot of noise about it when that happens), I’ve been… Read More »Blog Quandary

Pre-Post On What Is Nonprofit Technology

Early next week, I’m going to publish the “director’s cut” of my recent NTEN.ORG article, “What Is Nonprofit Technology“. But I wanted to talk about it a little first. The story behind this article is that, late in 2014, I was approached by some online tech e-mag to write an article for them.  I thought, why not tell all of the for-profit techies what it’s really like working in our sector?  And I wrote a solid first draft.  Then I started researching the magazine, and couldn’t find much.  There was little in the way of a FAQ, so I couldn’t ascertain things like, “who owns the content… Read More »Pre-Post On What Is Nonprofit Technology

The End Of NPTech (.INFO)

After eight years, I’ve decided to shutter the nptech.info website, which will also disable the @nptechinfo twitter feed that was derived from it.  Obviously, Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus have made RSS aggregation sites like nptech.info obsolete. Further, as Google ranks links from aggregators lower and lower on the optimization scale, it seems like I might be doing more harm than good by aggregating all of the nptech blogs there. It will be better for all if I spend my efforts promoting good posts on social media, rather than automatically populating a ghost town. Long-time Techcafeterians will recall that NPTECH.INFO used to be a pretty… Read More »The End Of NPTech (.INFO)

Google’s Creepy Profiles

Google unveiled a bold new product last week; one of critical and compelling import to anyone who believes that their online reputation is important. I’m not talking about Google Buzz. I’m talking about Google Profiles. This isn’t a new service — Google introduced the profile pages a few years ago. But the release of Google Buzz has illuminated how important they are in Google’s plans, and how important they can be for us. And if this profile is now a key pin in my personal branding strategy, I demand better tools to manage it than Google has provided.

Message to the Krazy.com Spammer

Okay, so I understand that you have a lot of time on your hands, and that you choose to, apparently, spend a significant amount of that time trying desperately to post spam advertising gambling and prescription drug websites to the guest book on my Krazy Kat web site. Let’s review: First, you started posting very large HTML spams to the guest book. Since the guest book is moderated, those came to me for approval by email. My guestbook is set up to email me the post, followed by a link I can click on to automatically publish it. I approve anything that’s remotely on topic,… Read More »Message to the Krazy.com Spammer

Non-profits: are blogs better than websites?

It’s a common scenario for your average non-profit (and a lot of small businesses as well): 1. You need a web presence. Goes without saying, right? 2. You have limited staff and budget, and nobody in your agency has the time, skills or desire to design your web site. 3. Even if you can budget a few grand to get the local HTML student to design a site for you, there are some inherent problems with this approach: a. That student is moving to Methuselah after the job and won’t be around to maintain it. b. The site needs regular updating to be viable, and… Read More »Non-profits: are blogs better than websites?

Why blog?

With over 8 million blogs out there (as of March, when I saw Mena Trott, founder of blogging service Six Apart, speak at the NTEN Non-Profit Technology conference), there’s a real good question as to why someone like me would add another “sad, default-Blogger-templated website” to the giant heap of the same out there. Well, I have a few reasons. Mainly, while most people set up blogs and then notice how conveniently they can distribute them via RSS (Really Simple Syndication), I got here from the reverse direction. I have a need to strategically publish content to a variety of web sites, and RSS is… Read More »Why blog?

Welcome!

Okay! After a few fits and starts on various blogging services, this is it – my own blog, hosted on my own server, with a title appropriately culled from Krazy Kat, my muse. WordPress is clearly a suitable platform, powerful, flexible, hackable. Look for a bit of early remodeling as I make the site look right. Good to be here – more to come!