Open source technologies are hardware and software which are completely accessible to the general public. This means that they can be continually refined and updated by anyone with the knowledge and reason to do so. Open source technology, particularly software, can be found for almost any purpose; here are 5 ways that your nonprofit organization can make use of this valuable resource.

Open source technologies are hardware and software which are completely accessible to the general public. This means that they can be continually refined and updated by anyone with the knowledge and reason to do so. Open source technology, particularly software, can be found for almost any purpose; here are 5 ways that your nonprofit organization can make use of this valuable resource.

The U.S. Department of Defense may teach you a thing or two about open source software (OSS). After spending years following the open-source trend, DoD technology representatives have laid out a firm opinion on open source—and it likely isn’t what you’d think.

Marketing automation tools (MAT) are all the rage; they're sophisticated pieces of technology that everyone can find useful to some degree. What’s true in theory, however, is not always true in fact. Introducing a marketing automation tool into your marketing and sales technology pipeline can result in unforeseen technology problems as well as unforeseen internal costs. I would like to introduce a way for you to think through whether you are ready for these tools, or if another technology choice might give you better return.

It's long frustrated me that SugarCRM's opportunity list view doesn't show a total for the opportunity amount. So, I finally decided to fix this.

"Never let a good crisis go to waste." That’s the mantra a former operations vice president I worked with liked to use. She believed that crises themselves weren’t the problem, but rather our failure to learn from them. At Synaxis, our hearts and minds are with those from Wilmington to Boston, and New York to Detroit, who are struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Indeed, two of our staff members work out of offices in Washington and New York City. But we are also ever mindful of the lessons that organizations should take from this disaster.

If you haven’t looked at USA Today’s website in the past couple weeks, you’re in for a surprising experience when you call up the page on your laptop—you’ll think you’re on your mobile device, not your laptop.

by Martin Davis

The debate over the ability of open source programs to handle enterprise-class businesses, complex nonprofit operations, and government needs is largely over. While the heavyweights in the proprietary world aren’t going away anytime soon, organizations are increasingly coming to realize that to ignore open source solutions is placing their business at a competitive disadvantage. But not all open source is created equal. What’s the better web solution—WordPress, Drupal, Joomla? What about a CRM—SugarCRM, CiviCRM? I could go on, but you get the point.