Free Calls to US and Canada

I found an awesome tool to call anywhere in the US and Canada. Thought of sharing it.. Try it, it lets you speak for 3 (long) minutes :). Just click on "Allow" and start dialing.

Zappos ideas for Non Profits

While working on my portal for non profits [I wont spill the beans yet!! :) ], I was figuring out ways to popularize non profit causes and as Tony Hsieh rightly points out in http://is.gd/oS3v it actually is the science of happiness that needs to be studied very well before anything else.

What I mean is…I have certain goals for which the portal will be my tool. Let’s mention them:
- Helping Non Profits unconditionally.
- Using and enhancing my knowledge of the web is doing so.
- Using social media tools to popularize a cause.
- Publicizing the idea and power of e-marketing via social media.
- And… bringing more and more non profit minded people closer online.

Now the uncanny question is how the zappos concept fits in here. Simply put, it fits for every entrepreneurial aspiration and so non profits aren’t quite definitely an exception. The slideshow mentioned above will explain almost everything. But the most interesting part is in here.



and here..




The idea of using the money allotted for publicity to enhance customer satisfaction features which in turn encourages repeat customers is very brilliant. It teaches us the values of being not greedy but humble. This concept holds true especially for all fundraising non profits who should look forward to build relationships and make their followers help them.

I have to again and I guess now I have made it a habit of thanking David J Neff for mentioning this on his blog post @ fispace.org. Good work again mate.

Support Team Corbin @ Charity Smack Down

Paypal's Charity Smack Down is a great concept. Again got this from Dave.. his blog post @ FISpace. The pledge to help and make your charity win is a great concept and Paypal should be commended for putting this up. Competition excites adrenile always, and cashing in on that for a noble cause is a good way to go.

I would support Team Corbin and urge all my readers to donate to Team Corbin and support their cause of getting new therapies to cancer patients quickly and saving their lives. We all have known, heard or seen a cancer patient die. Lets do a little something to help.

Understanding Non Profits

I spent most of last week gathering an impression of the Non Profit philosophy in the US. We’ll be soon working upon a Fundraising Product which would include multiple machineries to popularize the cause for an NPO and subsequently encourage donations. Frankly, the study left me amazed with the innovative methodologies that the NPOs are following for publicity and fundraising. Also, there still are lots of unheralded opportunities that can be utilized to propagate a cause.
I was much interested in the web aspect of these Non Profits which is governed by using the Web 2.0 methods like social media, social bookmarking, SEO etc. This interview clip from the David J Neff (great work mate) made me sit up and take notice of this Non Profit - WEB 2.0 model.

It’s absolutely amazing to find role models on the web and learn from the good work they have put up. For a beginner like me who knows social media but isn’t much aware about the Non Profit concepts, David is brilliant. He keeps things simple and effective. It has been a real education following his work on the web. So here’s what I learnt:
1. Establishing a Web presence.
- To begin with, the tools from Facebook, MySpace or Youtube can help to establish a web presence. This helps to organize a future collaborative reach for any cause. If the person (brand) is active and popular then the chances of the any petition reaching out to a wider audience increases.

2. Promoting specific actions or petitions.
- People check their email when they want to read and write. They log in to Facebook or MySpace when they want to take action. For many, an email petition is an annoyance to be deleted, while Facebook applications are fun, social, and available when you're ready to click a button, add your name to a petition, volunteer a little something about yourself, and compare your responses with friends. If you know and respect their culture, social networking sites can be an effective way to encourage people to take action or spread the word about your cause.

3. Consolidating existing, unofficial social networks related to your cause.
- Joining is more effective than Creating. That’s the mantra for social networking. Wasting time to popularize an ideal petition community may just end up killing your time. There are communities and networks which echo a similar cause and have a sizeable list of followers. It’s wiser to use it instead of creating a new community.

4. Informal outreach that blends the personal and professional.
- Befriending your professional rivals (on the web) and ideating together with them increases the possibilities to network online. This can always be used to help promote a professional cause.

5. Researching VIPs, potential associates, and others.
- Just the way I found David. Tons of information is available on these social networking sites. This is the best way to learn and upgrade knowledge (best practices).

6. Encourage and respond to constituent feedback quickly.
- Social networks are a great way to test your commitment to open communication if you want to get quick and honest feedback. Make it as easy as possible for people to find you and make requests (either within the site, or privately), and make sure you respond quickly, personally, and where appropriate, publicly. This creates a viral effect of dependency for any fellow networker to rely on you for most future assignments.

It’ll be great to know more about Social Media ideas in Non Profits. Ill be writing more on this soon.
Thanks again David for all your online materials.

First Draft: Business Analysis

Finally, I got the 2 hours I needed to get myself write this post. But, you all will agree surely, that keeping busy these days should be a pleasurable affair.

Now about Business Analysis for the web based jobs. We all know that programming languages and testing tools have evolved with time to maximize automation in project processes. But either they have not been enough or have been deterrent in the project progress often causing a blockade. An unharmed progress will be based on the extent to which business requirements evolve in tandem with the application; the degree to which requirements are clearly communicated to developers; and the clarity with which business analysts -- those liaisons between the development and business sides of the house -- explain each side's needs to the other. This clearly explains the criticality of the Business Analyst’s role.

In the days of Web 2.0, an advantageous Business Analysis is far and few in between.
To enlist the few reasons which become a challenge are:

1. Treating client’s project as own product.


2. Features making navigation more complex.


3. More focus on using new technologies compared to best practices.


4. Lack of proper communication between the BA and the client.


5. Insufficient market study and user case developments.

I’ll be trying to elaborate each of these points in my next posts. However, please do post comments to make this thread interesting. Thanks. Keep reading.

Sorry for the delay on the BA posts

Hi folks, I am sorry for not being able to follow up on the BA topic that I had promised in my earlier post. Have been held up with work badly but I hope in a days time the post should surely be done.

Thanks,
Sumit

Is our Earth dieing?

Haven’t we seen it all? Surely our generation should be remembered as one of the most dynamic and happening one in the history of this planet. It’s mighty preposterous to feel what we have seen in the few years that have gone by and will see in the ones that are coming. We have been witness to a renaissance in technology affecting every aspect of life…gadgets, constructions, automobiles, communication mediums and many more. Yet, at the doorstep of this immortal era for human comfort, mankind is again facing the ire of destiny.

The demons of a surmounting economic meltdown, unrelenting barbaric terrorism and terrifyingly consequential global warming have grown to proportions that are challenging the existence of humanity on this planet. Does this mean our earth is slowly losing subsistence? There is no assurance of life, whoever you are and wherever you are. We need to acknowledge and answer these issues collectively if the earth has to remain our abode. Else lets spend most of our money into the space programs to frantically search for life in some other planet so that we can shift there to leave behind our beloved planet as what we have made it, a diseased dustbin.