Soapbox Engage Blog

Tomorrow through Wednesday I'll be joining quite an esteemed list of non-profit technologists at the Salesforce.com Nonprofit Roadmap Summit, June 4-6, in San Mateo, CA. I'm eager to see how successful this crew can be at helping shape the roadmap for the non-profit template, and even more eager to see if this model can be replicated for our Non-Profit Soapbox. This is truly a unique opportunity to shape the future of a major application for our sector.

I just had a great online discussion with PICnetter Tim, who rightfully thinks I'm crazy for the hours I put into my work. Luckily, Tim and I were able to see eye-to-eye on a leadership development method called servant leadership. During the conversation, I thought about my CEO title, and how it seemed to connote and over-emphasize a top-down hierarchical structure at PICnet.

While I enjoy the title and the perks, like the CEO parking space (my bike in the office) and the CEO airline upgrades (every seat on jetBlue is first class), I believe a better term to associate with my position is "custodian" or possibly "steward".

I mean, look at this photo here. That's me, Ryan the Builder, with PICnet's good friend Susan Finkelpearl of Free Range Studios. What word comes to mind there, "CEO" or "custodian"?

In an effort to help spread the word of open source content management systems (CMS) and constituent relationship management systems (CRM), I was asked to give a talk at OneWorld on March 28, 2007 to the OneWorld Peer Learning Exchange. Roshani Kothari from OneWorld was gracious enough to write up some great notes on it (see below) as well as post a podcast of this.

Listen to the MP3 of the talk

Thanks to Roshani for her hard work to make these OneWorld Peer Learning Exchanges occur, and to my co-presenters Alan Rosenblatt and Guy Stevens for their contributions.

As a frequent flier of JetBlue airlines, I was as disappointed as others to hear the news of the horrible delays, poor customer service, and general lack of strategic planning that the company had during the weather problems of mid-February 2007. One thing that I knew about JetBlue, however, was its roll-up-the-sleeves mentality.