Year: 2012

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New Tendenci Help Files, Video Training, and Updates for Your NonProfit Website!

Looking for Help with Your Tendenci Website?

Check out these recent additions to our Help Files and Training Video Files!

Help Files: 

Find width x height sizes for common Tendenci Template images like your logo, rotator stories, and sponsor boxes

Learn how easy it is to Import your members from another website into Tendenci with a CSV file

Add a PayPal Online Payment button to a page on your Tendenci Website

Sign-up for our month to month hosting plan after your free trial, and then use your own custom domain name

Have a little fun with your Tendenci website content and change your bullet lists to custom icon lists with this intermediate level help file

Video Training:

Watch our new series to take you through setting up your Tendenci Website from the very beginning.

Find all our individual training videos to watch and learn how to set-up and use all the features included with Tendenci

We also add new content weekly to our YouTube and Slideshare pages, so follow Tendenci and get notified when we add new webinar presentations, video and help files, and more resources to help your nonprofit shine on the web!

Come Find Tendenci at These Events!

We would love to meet up with you in person to answer your questions about Tendenci and get to know you and what you are doing to make the world a better place.  Let us know if you’ll be at one of these upcoming events and want to hang out with us!

SXSW Interactive Festival – March 8th through March 13th, 2012 – Austin, TX

NTEN’s 2012 NonProfit Technology Conference (NTC) – April 3rd through April 5th, 2012 – San Francisco, California

Houston NetSquared Meetup – Monthly – Houston, TX

Tendenci Software Updates Has Moved!

For a long while, we’ve been posting Tendenci’s software version updates here on the blog.  We decided to move those updates onto our Tendenci website moving forward.  You’ll still find the updates we’ve already posted on the blog here forever and always, and head to Tendenci Software Updates to find the new updates starting with this past week.

From the Tendenci Homepage, just scroll down to the footer and you’ll find the new link to our weekly version update announcements:

We’ll still share some of the highlights of our weekly software updates here on the blog with you – for example, this week we have made some great updates to Tendenci that make it easier for you to manage your corporate members and set permissions controls!

Corporate Membership Updates

  • The corporate representative page now displays a list of all members associated with that corporation.
  • The creator and owner of a Corporate Membership can add additional representatives under this Corporate Membership.
  • The creator and owner of a Corporate Membership can also assign new memberships.
  • Added permission control settings to ensure that Anonymous users cannot be assigned to a corporate membership.

Better Permissions Control Viewing

I’m really excited about this update! 

We widened and updated Tendenci’s Group and Profile Permissions Control View to resolve the issue with some permission settings being truncated and unclear.

Import Your Members from Your Old Site to Tendenci Faster

We made some improvements to our member import with clearer error messages, better file and application mapping, and now membership fields are no longer case-sensitive in the import CSV file.  You can also separate membership fields with spaces, underscores, or dashes without interfering with the import.

Use the Help File for Importing Your Members to see how to import members from a CSV into your Tendenci website.

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Four Easy Ways to Start Using Facebook’s Timeline View for Pages

As of today, Facebook began rolling out Timeline view for Facebook Fan Pages. This update will be mandatory on March 30, but you can update your page now and start taking advantage of the new features.

The Facebook team implements changes all the time as they come up with new and innovative ways to connect their users, and these changes are always a little overwhelming as you figure out the new interface and the new tools you have available. The new update will mean changes to the way your Brand appears on Facebook and the web. But don’t fret!

Here are four EASY things you can do RIGHT NOW to get started with Timeline:

1. Read up on the New Features

Some of the new features include Cover Photo, Larger Stories, and an enhanced Admin panel to give you more data and control over your page.

Check out this article from ZDNet is a great overview of all of the new features

2. Switch your Fan Page to Timeline view

The update will be required across all pages eventually, so go ahead and dive in now while everyone is still figuring out the best way to take advantage of the new look.

To Switch Your Facebook Fan Page to the New Timeline Look:

When you log in & go to your Fan Page, you’ll see a flag at the top that prompts you to preview this page in the new look. Click “Preview” to see what your page will look like using Timeline.

How to Switch your Facebook Fan Page to Timeline View

From here click “Publish Now” to permanently make the switch.

How to switch your Facebook page to new Timeline View part 2

3. Add a Cover Photo

Like on a personal page, your cover photo is a larger photo (specifically  850×315)  aside from your profile picture that shows off who you are and sets the tone for your page. You can use this space to make a custom image similar to what Coca-Cola has done. Or in the short term, use this space to show a shot of your main product, your team, or your facilities – choose an interesting image that shows off who you are.

Coca Cola Facebook Fan Page Cover Photo

Schipul Cover Photo

4. Add your Founded Date & Story

Facebook Timeline yearsYou’ll want to go back in and fill in highlights from your company’s history, but you can start right now by adding the story of how you were founded.

On the right of your page, click  “Founded” at the bottom of your timeline & you’ll see an Edit icon where you can edit the details and add a photo.

Check out Schipul’s Founded Timeline Milestone and fantastic photo of Ed and Rachel from 1997!

Schipul Facebook Timeline - Founded 1997

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Why I’m Building SpacePoints on the Tendenci CMS for Non-Profit Websites

First, What is SpacePoints?

The general software platform I’ve been leading development on called SpacePoints can best be explained like this:

When you share your excitement and passion for space, you’ll earn a ‘spacepoint’ and the SpacePoints online platform maintains the database of your space activities and spacepoints earned.  

The toughest part with describing SpacePoints is communicating the idea around a platform for space enthusiasts to share their excitement of space-exploration to people outside of the space community and being rewarded for this through a virtual points system.  The goal is to motivate people to become more active in promoting space exploration, whether it be robotic, planetary science, human spaceflight, science fiction turned reality, or other space-topics.

The Background Story of SpacePoints

SpacePoints was an idea that spontaneously came out of a SpaceUp Houston Unconference last February in a session jointly led by Dennis Bonilla and Tim Bailey.  I could write several pages sharing the story of how SpacePoints went from an idea to a crowdsourced workshop and set of requirements to a working software product.

I won’t go into all of that here though – instead I will share a little about the “elephant in the room” and how I came to use Tendenci as the platform for SpacePoints.  In case you missed what the “elephant” is – I work for Tendenci and I’m building SpacePoints (a volunteer project that I’m personally involved in) on Tendenci.   I’m presenting SpacePoints at different events like SpaceUps and SXSW Interactive and as a result, Tendenci is getting PR too.

The decision to build SpacePoints on Tendenci was a tough one – and not remotely because I thought Tendenci wouldn’t be a good platform or don’t enjoy using it.  Quite the contrary – I love Tendenci and use it every day to update both our company’s websites: https://www.tendenci.com and https://www.tendenci.com.

SpacePoints actually started on a custom PHP platform that we weren’t able to complete due to a lack of programmers with enough free time.  Then, I began researching a number of different options including Drupal, PHPBB and Elgg. Each of these were far more technical than I was prepared for with the limited timeline I had before March 12th, 2012 when Spacepoints will be officially launching in beta at SXSW Interactive.

I needed a beta-ready version of a new online community and I had less than 5 months to do that. The irony is it took a Drupal developer (and friend), Kojo Idrissa, to convince me finally to stop resisting and use the tools that I had inside of Tendenci because I knew how and could accomplish it in a way that would really make SpacePoints more than just a “space-twitter” clone.

The SpacePoints Development Site is already being tested by a select number of users and it is far easier to use and integrate social sharing tools and other plugins in a short time frame than other options I looked into.  I am really glad I ultimately chose Tendenci for the platform.

What I Learned From This

I learned a lot of new technical things, including just how complicated setting up and configuring a Drupal platform can be, but I also learned something more valuable that I feel is something most of Tendenci’s clients can relate to.

Nonprofits and cause-related projects are understaffed and underfunded and generally don’t have a lot of technical people to help – yet the website and other online tools for marketing and fundraising and building a community are so critical.  If you can find a tool that you can use and that you can afford (or that someone is going to donate like my company has donated Tendenci software and hosting to the SpacePoints project), then Say Yes and use it!

Even if it isn’t the exact fit you wanted – nonprofits don’t have the luxury of waiting for something perfect if perfect means custom programming, doesn’t exist yet, or costs too much.  Start building your community and generating revenue through donations, memberships, and sponsorships on whatever platform you have access to.  You can always change it later on when you have more support and more money.

I wish I had said yes months before I did instead of worrying about how it would look.  Yes – Tendenci is going to gain a lot of PR from this and that’s not a bad thing because SpacePoints is also going to be able to grow and succeed faster than if I’d tried to go with something else.

SpacePoints Links

I would love for you to go learn more about the longer story of SpacePoints.  Then sign-up for a beta invitation and if you’ll be at SXSW this year, come to the panel!   Here are the links:

Sign-Up for the SpacePoints Beta sign-up

Check Out the Details in the SpacePoints Wiki

Come to the SXSW SpacePoints: Space Outreach at Ludicrous Speed panel!

 

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Ignite Houston 2012 – Highlights & Photos

Ignite Houston LogoIgnite Talks feature speakers presenting 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds – for a total of 5 minutes. Last night was Houston’s very first Ignite program hosted by our friends at C2 Creative, featuring two of our very own Schipulites Ed Schipul & Katrina Esco

Below are some highlights of the evening for me.

All photos by Ed Schipul (except for the twitpic of him). Check out all the photos in the Ignite Houston photo gallery on Facebook

1.The Fabulous Speakers

All of the Ignite Houston speakers were wonderful – whether they were funny, insightful, uplifting,   thought-provoking, or performed death-defying stunts with helicopters… we loved them all.

Grace Rodriguez Ignite Houston 2012

2. The Main Man MC Brian Block

You gotta love this guy. He’s funny & smart & doesn’t take himself too seriously. He was a fantastic MC who kept everything moving right along.

Brian Block Ignite Houston MC 2012

3. Schipulite Katrina Esco’s “Writing Good Emails Will Change Lives”

I wholeheartedly agree that bad emails eat your soul, and also that writing great (helpful, informative, clear) business emails will change the world. Check out Katrina Esco’s Ignite Houston presentation on Slideshare below!

The Best Business Email Ever Written

… And view the full recap of “The Best Business Email Ever Written”

4. A Rubber Chicken

There were two talks discussing space and space exploration. One was on behalf of Camilla Corona SDO – aka NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s rubber chicken mascot. She actively helps with Education and Public Outreach, visits class rooms, science festivals, fairs and space exhibits to teach about the Sun, space weather and space exploration. And was great fun at the after-party.

Camilla Corona SDO is NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory's mascot

Schipul Crew with Camilla SDO at Ignite Houston 2012

5. Subliminal Messages from Kristen Baker

Kristen Baker discussed tricking people into advertising for you by creating a cult out of your brand. Who knew free stickers could be so powerful? Another favorite moment was her commentary around building loyalty from the inside… by keeping your employees fat & happy.

Kristen Baker on subliminal messaging at Ignite Houston 2012

6. Daniel J. Cohen on How NOT to Write

I especially loved Daniel J. Cohen’s presentation on what not to do in copywriting. His major two sins to avoid: 1) Having no concept & 2) Grammatical issues… Including hilarious examples.

Daniel’s advice for copywriting: Start with a strong concept, consider the audience, and tighten your mechanics. Otherwise you’ll end up with something like this:

Comas Save Lives - Let's Eat Grandpa

7. Flying Robot Invasion!

The finale of the event was Ed’s presentation on Invasion of the Drones, including a flight demo of one of his quadracopters. No one was injured during the presentation (though Ed may or may not have some injuries from the workshop in preparation for the event).

My favorite example Ed showed on the power of these machines are the Nano Quadracopters that have swarm and agile flight capabilities (so they can navigate around obstacles automatically). And yes, they are captured on YouTube.

Twitpic - Ed Schipul Attack of the Drones at ignite Houston

8. The Volunteers!

A big thanks to all of the organizers and volunteers of this great event. You were wonderful!

Erica O'Grady & Imelda Ignite houston 2012

Want more Ignite?

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Your SXSW 2012 Interactive Top 10 Tips for Survival

SXSW Interactive is one of, if not THE biggest, interactive marketing and web conference, and is a valuable resource for our team here at Schipul.  SXSW Interactive offers education and the latest and greatest for all things related to web marketing and digital advertising.

I’m excited to be able to give back to my profession this year as a presenter on a panel: Spacepoints’ Space Outreach at Ludicrous Speed! If you’re going to be in Austin in March for SXSW 2012, come check out my panel or just hang out with the team from Schipul attending.  {shameless plug!}

SXSW has a Guide for First Timers that can give you some tips on navigating the conference.  Their guide can get you to the sessions, but when I attend SXSW, I am also looking to connect with other Interactive Agencies to build relationships and identify the latest technology innovations and software tools to help our clients improve their online marketing results.  This results in a 24/7 week-long agenda of AM networking breakfast, blogger’s lounge, panels, afternoon networking, party, party, party, 4 hours of sleep, repeat.  Over the past few years, I’ve developed my own tips for surviving the extended-version of SXSW Interactive.

Here are my Top 10 Tips for Doing SXSW Interactive Hardcore:

1) Say Yes to the Free Caffeine; Say No to the Free Booze.

You’ll find that every party will have plenty of free sugar free red bull, monster energy drinks, vodka or some other kind of alcohol to mix.  Then my Caffeine Hero: Starbucks always comes to the rescue the next morning with plenty of free coffee.  Skip the booze if you want to make it through the entire week, and stock your hotel with fresh fruit and healthy snacks because you’ll be hard pressed to find any food, let alone free food at SXSW.

2) Keep Your Smartphone Charger on You at All Times.

You will be on the go running from panel to panel during the day, and then party to party each night. Carry your phone charger with you, take a spare that you keep in your hotel room (in case you lose your first one), and if you have the option’ get a spare battery too. If you see an outlet near you’ don’t be ashamed to plugin and juice up your phone. Tweeting, foursquaring, and texting is power-intensive and you don’t want to have a dead battery at 2am when you are trying to find directions back to your hotel.

3) Bookmark http://austin2012.sched.org/ and use it to create your personalized SXSW schedule before you get to Austin.

SXSW’s event schedule on their website is pretty good’ however I’ve been using sched.org’s unofficial SXSW guide to find EVERY party, panel, and must attend event possible.  The best places to connect with people at SXSW aren’t always “official” parties.

Sched also offers a new feature this year that enables you to sync your Eventbrite RSVPs and the platform is available for all the major mobile platforms: iphone, Droid and Blackberry. When you get to Austin, you’ll love how easy sched makes it to find your next session on the go.

4) Pack a Swimsuit.

Austin weather is fickle, and it may be 60 degrees in early March or 90. Regardless’ all the hotels have swimming pools and hot tubs and if you are doing it right, you’ll be invited to at least one pool party.  I don’t recommend skinny dipping at SXSW’ everyone has a camera in their smartphone and you what happens at SXSW definitely does NOT stay at SXSW.  So take your favorite swim trunks or bikini when you pack for Austin.

5) Pack a Cowboy Hat and Cowboy Boots.

There will be at least 2 parties with a Texas country theme. If you don’t have western attire’ no worries, Austin has some great shops where you can purchase what you need.  I’ve gotten great Cowgirl boots at  Allen’s Boots and the HatBox has Cowboy hats in every style plus tons of other fun and funky headwear.

6) Pack a Backpack and Leave Your Briefcase at Home.

Have I already mentioned you’ll be on the move for a week? Take a compact backpack with a laptop-padded section for your trip and spare your back and shoulders the strain of running around all day carrying your briefcase. You don’t have to take your laptop or tablet PC’ but you’ll definitely want to have something with you for taking notes in the sessions, even if you prefer traditional pen and paper.  If you are going to any of the developer or design sessions then your laptop will be heavily used. Bloggers will find the Bloggers lounge a great resource for power and snacks while updating your audience with all the latest happenings online too.

7) Talk to Strangers.

The panels are great for professional development but it’s the people at the conference that are the core of the experience so don’t be shy’ say Hi to everyone you meet. SXSW Interactive hosts the largest single gathering of ‘Connectors” you’ll ever find so strike up a conversation and get connected with new people who will help you grow your business, launch your start-up, or make an introduction to that big prospect or thought leader.

8) Take More Business Cards Than You Think You’ll Need’ and Stickers Too!

I probably go through 200-300 mini-moos each SXSW. I order cards JUST for SXSW that have my contact information while at the conference. I include a headshot so people recognize me throughout the week, my mobile so people can text me about any “pop-up” parties, my email address for following up later, and this year my panel information so people will know when and where I’ll be presenting. I recommend moo.com’s mini-moos if you are going to order cards just for the event. Here’s my cards for this year:

9)  Make Time to Visit the Exhibitions, Showcases, and Lounges.

One of the best places to find out about innovations in online technology is SXSW’s Interactive.  The only place I personally can imagine being cooler for a tech-geek like me is the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.  SXSW has several different Trade Shows and Showcase Lounges featuring an array of products and services that your business may want to utilize for growing online and offline next year.  You definitely want to make your rounds to the SXSW Start-up Village Showcase featuring new technology start-ups, plus you can snag some really fun Swag!

10) Don’t Try to Do Everything.

You can’t.  I tried one year and came back with no voice left and a dazed and confused fog that took 2 more weeks to dissipate.  Until cloning techniques advance, I’ll have to settle with missing about 2/3rds of everything because so much is going on all at once.

Schedule at least 4 to 6 hours of sleep each night.  Make time in your schedule to get away from the convention center to walk around the lake one morning or take a couple of hours one afternoon and take a nap in your hotel.  SXSW, when done right, is both grueling and an amazing experience.  Definitely dive right into the throng of digital tech madness, but be sure to turn off your phone every so often…

And remember: Don’t Drink the Free Booze!

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Survey: Which Tendenci Brand Color Do You Like?

We’re considering changing Tendenci’s brand colors. We want to know what you think!

Take a look at the color options below and let us know which color you like best. Don’t be shy! Vote!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

Thanks for voting! Please don’t hesitate to share with your networks so we can get their opinions as well!

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Tendenci Includes a Little Love Note Just for You with this Week’s Software Updates

Be My Valentine, Love Tendenci!

We are updating your Tendenci websites with new features and improved functionality this morning.  We also wanted to show you how much we love our clients and you’ll notice a new pink link on your admin bar.  Click on the link and receive Valentine’s Sweets for being such a Sweetheart!

Featured Updates

Tendenci’s Custom Forms now include the option for your visitors to set their own price or donation amount.

When you create a custom payment form, you’ll simply leave the Price field blank to allow your site visitors to input their own price.  You can add multiple payment amounts and add this custom price option to the mix.

Here’s an example from Avant Garden using 2 fixed prices plus an any amount option:

Here’s more great updates to Love about your Tendenci software for nonprofit and association website management:

Global Settings and Content Management

  • Help files now have an RSS feed
  • Current Story images and Directory logos can be removed
  • Stories now link to their detail view if a full-story-link is not set
  • Custom forms label size increased to 2k characters long
  • Visitors can set their own price on custom forms
  • Added the ability to remove uploaded images in directories, stories, and events

Membership Module Updates

  • Improved Subscriber import feature that does simple name detection for first, last, and full name
  • You can now customize the “From” address on membership notifications by filling in the sender display and sender fields

Tendenci Online Payments

  • Payment method on custom forms uses currency setting for international payment options

Tendenci Events Management Module

  • Removed initial Google Maps info-bubble on the Event page for a better user view of the map
  • The current featured image for an event can be removed

Tendenci Rich Media Photos and Online Video

  • Added Open Graph meta tags to photo albums to help Facebook detect images and descriptions when sharing the photo album

 

Not using Tendenci for your website CMS?

Find out all the awesome things Tendenci can do for your Non-Profit or Association with our 30-Day FREE Trial.  Then – show us what you can do with your Tendenci website!

Questions about these Updates? 

Hit us up in the comments or over on Get Satisfaction and try out our newest self sign-up version of the Tendenci Software FREE for 30 days! 

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Geek Love – A Valentine’s Day Poem from the Schipulites

Schipul Geek Love - Happy Valentine's Day!

This February, we’re sharing Tips & Tricks we Schipulites love at schipul.com/love. With Valentine’s Day just a week away,   we also wanted to share this love poem with you, our clients and friends.Enjoy!

Geek Love, a Poem from the Schipulites to You!

In Schipul-land this Valentine’s, we want to spread the LOVE

By sharing things that currently have set our hearts abuzz.

You know we love to geek on out, and share the things we know

With clients, friends, and all of you – dear readers of this poem.

Each day this month we’ll share a tip, or trick, or tool, or thing

Like Spotify or Google Chrome or CodeAcademy

See why Eloy loves the Cloud, and Brian loves Zen Desk,

Why Courtney cannot get enough of her fave – Pinterest!

How Erica learned coding from videos online

Or KMe uses Google Docs to save her clients time.

We’ll share one new thing daily, schipul dot com slash love

Love from the SchipulitesKeep coming back to see what’s new, and share with all your buds.

Whether it’s your most favorite day, or one that’s just alright…

We wish you Happy Valentine’s

With   LOVE, the Schipulites!

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Tendenci Software Updates February 2nd

Track how often your files are downloaded form your website with Tendenci

We’re excited to share the  following updates to the Tendenci Software this week!

Track how often your files are downloaded form your website with TendenciComing Soon – Tracking Downloads in the Files Module!

This week we laid the ground work in the back end of Tendenci to allow you to track how many times any file in the Files module has been downloaded. This will give admins analytics on how often their files are downloaded and allow them to filter within a certain file type or time period. This is extremely useful for tracking how often your visitors are viewing your content.

The front end interface isn’t completed just yet, but will be soon!

Here is the full list of updates we made this week to the Tendenci software:

Events Module Updates

  • You can now add HTML tags in Speaker descriptions, including links and photos
  • The event month view doesn’t allow views at or before the year 1900 (you can now only keep 112 years of historical calendar events)

  • Screenshot of Registration button in Tendenci 5

    Payment methods, CAPTCHA, register & pay button moved to the bottom of event registration page (see screenshot at right)

Jobs Module Updates

  • You can now add HTML tags in experience, skills, and education fields on jobs
  • The jobs search page now displays Jobs Results more consistently

Users Module Updates

  • You now have more control over how your users are searched including security permissions for user search

Updated User Interface for Old Versions of Internet Explorer

  • We’ve updated the Tendenci tabs to hover over elements in IE7
  • We’ve updated the drag & drop feature in Videos to drag in IE8

Using out of date software means you aren’t getting the latest functionality, and you may be at risk of security threats because that browser is no longer supported. If you’re still using IE7 or IE8, upgrade here!

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More to come next week!