Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Tony’s Guests:
Michael O’Brien, founder and principal of mob advocacy, knows how to bring people to your cause with grassroots advocacy. How do you activate people? What are grass tops and how do you engage them? Where can you go to meet potential coalition partners? What’s the value added for your work?
Desktops, laptops, tablets and handhelds. Scott Koegler has tips for picking the right device to fit your budget, work style and personality. He’s the editor of Nonprofit Technology News and our monthly tech contributor.
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When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern
Here is the link to the audio podcast: 105: Grow Grassroots & Devine Devices.
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No. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent it’s august seventeenth. Oh, how i wish and i hope that you were with me last week i couldn’t stand knowing that you had missed last week’s show working with your small organization board what’s special about working with small shop boards, we talked about setting expectations, recruiting, training fund-raising and assessing your boards capabilities. My guests from fund-raising day twenty twelve were terry billy from the hudson river museum, wendy no adele from yonkers partners and education, and lisa rob, executive director of the new york state council on the arts. Also see the smart cr m system, constituent relationship management. You’ve got constituents, employees, donors, volunteers, clients and vendors. How do you manage your relationships with them? What’s the impact on your prospect management maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, had lots of ideas last week, as she always does this week grow grassroots. Michael o’brien, founder and principal of mob advocacy, knows how to bring people to your cause with grassroots advocacy. How do you activate people who are the grass tops and how do? You engage them, and where do you go to meet potential coalition partners, what’s, the value added for your work. All of that, with michael o’brien. Also divine devices, desktops, laptops, tablets, handhelds. Scott koegler has tips for picking the right device to fit your budget, work, style and personality. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news in our regular monthly tech contributor. Between the guests on tony’s take to help me out and get a free book. My book. I’d appreciate your help with a three minute survey, and i’ll say more about that on tony’s, take two. Use the hashtag non-profit radio on twitter to join the conversation with us there. As always, we take a break, and then when we return, it’s grow grass roots with michael o’brien, stay with me. You didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink, you’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Dahna good joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city in pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller emotional freedom, and greg brayden will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve, save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot order, or h a n j dot net. Hi, i’m donna, and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family, court, co, parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more. Dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever. Join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio where else you’re going to hear those kinds of ideas? Nowhere. Michael o’brien is my guest. He is the founder and principal of mob advocacy, a multi state government relations firm that focuses on helping small businesses and non-profits manage legislative and regulatory processes, he has over ten years of experience managing state and local government relations and political programmes. Michael has launched many national grassroots advocacy campaigns that have impacted legislation and policy at both the state and federal levels. Michael brian, welcome to the show. Thank you. Good afternoon, it’s. A good afternoon to you. I’m glad you’re with us. Well, let’s, let’s define grassroots advocacy. So we know everybody’s starting in the same place. Sure. I define grassroots advocacy as engaging regular people that the typical constituent in order to impact public policy or public opinion. Okay, go ahead. Is there more, uh, just to say that it varies from what’s considered direct lobbying, which is ah lot more heavily regulated and requires, uh, registration process with either the state federal or local government. Right. Okay. But it goes it. Could be that, but we’re going. We’re going to talk about the doing it. The grassroots with the with the average joe, the average right and the average jane. Also, jane is welcome to participate as well. Um all right. How does this, uh, grassroots advocacy? How can it help? Small charities? I think there’s three ways that, uh, grassroot dad? Because he helped out small charities. One, uh, i think grassroots advocacy is often essential to organizational missions. Uh, it’s. Hard to think of. Ah, oven issue out there. That’s not impacted by local, state or federal legislation or regulatory process. Uh, so it’s important for your organization to be involved. Second, it’s. A great way to engage volunteers and donors. Small amount profits are asking people to give money. Um, you know, off all the time, you know, four, five times a year in order to be successful. That has to be part of the process. But it is important to provide some different different ways for volunteers to get involved in different ways for them to have an impact other than giving money. And this is a great way to be okay. And this actually i know. You have another way, but this actually could lead to someone becoming a donor so they might come to your cause and sign a petition or do things that we’re going to talk about and then become a donor down the road absolutely small, small, just like small donors become big donors, small advocates become big donors and, you know, those top advocate said that organization’s looking for ok and even you know, that could become small donors because then small donors have become big donors, has become big donor it’s all part of a spectrum? Absolutely. Then big donors could continue to become grassroots advocates, but they wouldn’t go back to being small donors way. Hope not. No, no, that wouldn’t happen. Okay, and then what’s the other. What else is this important? The third way. It’s. A great way to find new supporters. Er, you know, for for volunteers, donors even those on the on the, uh whose responsibilities include fund-raising it’s sometimes hard to ask somebody who’s brand new to an organization to get money but it’s easy to say. Hey, can you spare five minutes in and send an email to your to your legislator? Can you spare five minutes and signed this petition it’s an easy ask. And once you get those people involved in your organization, you know, they have some kind of interest because they they took that step and got involved. And so it’s a good way to increase your your your database and gives opportunities to call the-whiny-donor further, i love that easy, easy entry point and then also can help new entrance introduce your cause to their friends as well, who who may very well be sympathetic. Absolutely cool. Okay, um, and so you’ve seen this make make a real change. I mean, this really can impact policy and funding in things. I mean, absolutely, i don’t i can’t think of a of a major advocacy campaign that that i’ve been involved with that didn’t have grassroots as as a key part of that, uh, lawmakers, they listened the lobbyists all day long, and they know there’s a bent out there, but when it when it hits home, when their constituents are calling in or sending emails saying, hey, you know, take a look at this that’s that’s when it really hits home, when when it’s people voting for them. Back home have an interest in it. Lawmakers take, uh, take a much closer look at the issue. They do ok, i’ve always you know, i’ve always wondered because i fill out petitions sometimes or send emails and make phone calls, and i just wondered if it really is making a difference. Sometimes you don’t get the feedback from the organization, which i maybe we’ll talk about, but that’s a downside, but but i just always wonder, you know, but you’re saying, yes, people good. What makers do? Listen, yeah, okay, okay, we have just a little less than a minute before before first break. So why don’t we just, um but you just introduce us to the idea of the way social media has helped create these grassroots campaigns to make sure that could be a whole show it and i know what you’re going, you’re going to squeeze it into thirty seconds, and then we’re gonna come back and talk about it more after a break. Ok, the internet. It has completely changed grassroot dad, because just by making making it easier one for organizations to reach their advocates and spread their message, but, uh, you know, making it far easier and cheaper for those advocates to reach out to there to there legislature, especially those in washington. I mean, if you’re in california, used to be a long distance call, uh, you have to go through the switchboard, you know, with the internet, it it’s an email on your getting directly, oftentimes, to stafford, take, who takes care of that issue. Okay, that was well said on, we have live listener love going out to california, a one e looks like a wani california live listener love going out there. Right now, we take a break, and when we return, michael brian stays with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology, no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s, provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s, really going on. What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me, larry. Sure you’re neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio, dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com we are back, and we’re talking about growing your grassroots with michael o’brien. I got some more live listener love. We got a couple of news out their new bern, north carolina knew palestine, indiana welcome and michael o’brien, i’m going to challenge you. If you’re going to use an example, you have to use one from a state where we have a live listener. So, so far, we’ve identified california, north carolina and indiana, and there are others, of course. So please confine your examples to those states. No problem. All right, that was one more time. California, indiana, north carolina. Alright, let’s, continue online. I’m sure there are sites that can help charities create a grassroots campaign. Yeah. There’s. A number of different sites. Uh, both free and, uh, pay sites that okay. That help you grow and manage your grassroots campaign. Uh, let’s. Let’s. Name sametz. Talk about some free ones. Sure. Justin. Detail some great, some good free ones. Uh, there’s a a new company. Fairly new company called pot woobox, which is a a great job with federal legislator. Popped like alternative father. Right? Pio pio. Gop video right now, if you go to pot. Woobox p ot vox there’ll be marijuana legalization advocacy pot box you can you can actually find information about marijuana legalization on pop fox is well, you can. All right. Also smoke a bone box. I’m sure okay, uh, pop fox. Yes, but it is a kind of a new grassroots tool. It measures public opinion. But how many letters going in for and against an issue it free for organizations and individuals, too, to sign up and to help kind of broadcast their message to other potential supporters. Uh, and just recently, the democratic caucus in the house and the senate announced that they’re giving the sentiment feet from pop box tto help, uh, help keep there, uh, caucus informed on public opinion on different issues. Okay. So just as an example of how, how much of an impact this makes you know when when lawmakers air using that direct public opinion data, you know, you know, every letter count, just like every vote counts in elections. Every letter counts in a grassroots campaign. What else you got? That’s free. Uh, bill track fifty and some light foundation and thomas help look at legislation that organizations might be interested. In okay. Agreement that was built. Track foundation and its satellite bill. Track fifty. Bill, check fifty. Pardon me, bill. Track fifty. Fifty dot com. Yes, the sunlight foundation. Some light foundation. Okay, again. And congress dot org’s, congress dot org’s. Oh, interesting. Are they affiliated with with our united states congress it’s affiliated with cq roll call? Actually, what is that? Congressional quarterly. Real congressional quarterly. What? You’re watching? We have jargon jail in tony martignetti non-profit radio, and i will throw you in there. Especially is somebody who’s. Ah, troublemaker. Sorry about that. That that’s, uh, that’s just the name that’s. How i’ve known that this is cq on then thomas dot lock, dot gov and those air great tools to research federal and state legislation. So you can have an idea of what issues you want to take? Uh, take action on. And then, um, i don’t know what of a good free state local advocacy piece, but i know there that there are some in development, so hopefully and they in the coming months, we might have a good one coming. Okay, i’ll tell you why our audience is small and midsize charity. So we’re going to stick with the free sites. And if people want to find the pay sites, i’m sure they can do that. We’re going to stick with talking about the free ones. So let’s, stay online for a little while. What? I mean, you could you could build your own cause site, right? I mean, it’s it’s virtually cost less to put up a website. Correct? Uh, okay. And what should you be doing on that website when you put up your yurt grassroots cause site of the top things you know, make sure your issue is defined in ways that the everyday voter or everyday legislature legislator can understand. Uh, people want to think that our elected officials know a lot about every issue. Uh, that’s just simply not true. They don’t have the time, uh, or the capacity to know everything about your issue. So keep the language simple. Umm, you know, make sure it’s in terms that that an everyday person can understand. Ok, i try to use my grandmother tests. You know, my grandmother can understand it that i’m doing the right thing. Okay? I’m going to stay away from that. I like grandmothers. I don’t have mine with me, but i’m just going to let that go. Listeners may be disappointed, but you can come up with your own retort to michael’s. Grandfather, grandmother, test on why it’s a grandmother test? Not a grandfather test. Okay, what else? What? We should be capturing emails. I’m sure. Right. What else should be doing on this site? Yes, a way for people to sign up for your information. Uh, and, you know, a simple email collection or ah, form where they can add in additional information so you can match them, uh, with their legislator, uh, is important depending on the size of your advocacy campaign. Uh, e mails could be fine. You know, you might want that additional form information. It doesn’t take that much longer for somebody that fill it out. I don’t think it’s a huge deterrent out there, okay. And, you know, third, uh, you know, provide opportunities for your supporters to spread the word. You know what? Twitter with linked in with facebook, you know, just having the send this to three of your friends, you know, using using social media and and that, uh, you know, social media to help grow your your grassroots campaign, those are the three essential pieces, okay? And i see i see that often when i’m asked to sign something on dh then i do it, then i get something back it’s usually from move on dot or ge i get something back saying thank you. Now, please share this and they have buttons to share it on twitter, sharing on facebook, et cetera. Right then, then, validation process and, uh, you know, i know a lot of fund-raising cos there now, you know, kind of using that validation process as well, you know? But, you know, the validation process really helps grow your grassroots process, the validation process being what? Thank you that i’m referring to the they having tony send is sending no doubt, teo friends saying, hey, you know, i support this i believe in this, you know, take a look at it. You know that validation is is key to growing your your your grassroot that base. Okay, okay. Now, if you so if you fertilize your grassroots on dh use lots of, i guess use lots of weed, b gon and adequate fertiliser. Then the grass is going to grow. And you can have these things called grass tops, what are grass tops, grass tops or the kind of the super advocates? So there there’s two categories that i put people in the people who are who are the most passionate, most vocal on your on your issue? Uh, they’re the people who answer every email respond are contacting their legislature legislator hyre uh, they’re important because they’re out there, they’re promoting and and you want to keep an eye on them because you don’t want them to over promoting, go overboard. You want him to stay on message. But, you know, the passion is there. They’re easy to motivate. Yes. The second is the grassroot supporter who’s who’s connected, who lives down the street from their state legislator. Uh, who’s. You know, brother, in law’s, the mayor, you know, those people who have who have personal connections to legislators and the’s air the grass tops the’s the grass tops these these are the grass tops. So you have your passionate, passionate, always their advocates. Then you have the people, uh, who have some real access that your general, uh, general constituents don’t have. Okay, when you marry those two and put them out there, you have a very powerful combination hyre that can hit people in ways that your traditional grassroots doesn’t always said you might not hit the right legislator every time with your grassroots database, but with your grass tops, you might be ableto sneak peek in somewhere where you didn’t necessarily have access reached before. All right? Michael o’brien is the founder and principal of mob advocacy, and we’re talking about growing your grassroots and you’ll find his block at mob hyphen advocacy dot black spot dot com were a little more live listener love going out foreign now tokyo, japan welcome pens burghdoff, germany welcome. You’re going to want to hang out because i’m gonna be speaking german later on. I promise you. I’m speaking german later on. Hang on their pens. Berg, seoul, korea, vienna, austria. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, michael. How do we engage these grass tops differently than we do the grassroots? Uh, well, first of all, they just like, just like your major donors, they do take a little extra cultivation. Um, you have to do that. Prospect research on your grassroots database? Yeah. People don’t always think about it. You know the process. To cultivate a grassroots said forget is exactly the same as the process to cultivate a funder and a major donor. You got to do the prospect research. You gotta do your homework. It’s you know, it’s it’s not always easy, you know, sometimes it starts by you catch an address or you’ll catch a name. And, you know, i wonder if this person knows and, you know, you connect some of the dots, uh, and it takes, you know, the government relations person of the grassroots person or even the executive director reaching out. Say, hey, you know, i saw that you have an interest on this issue. Can i talk to you about it? And, you know, you you start that discussion process and find out, you know, how interested are they? How connected are they? Um and then, you know, just like with the major donor, you know, you make that ask, hey, can you help us? You know, beyond just that five minute weather and oftentimes, if if, if they’re connected and already have an interest in your organization, you know that it’s still an easier asked that then asking for money? Oftentimes i’m going anyway. How about getting other groups involved with you to help you? Other charities? Perhaps? Sure. Coalition work, i think is is important. Individual charity’s only have so many, so many people on the database lists, they only have so many reach, whether you know, whether that numbers, whether geographic area, you know, whether that’s, you know, pinned down by the the, uh, the scope of the mission reaching out to other organizations who do similar work or, you know, maybe completely different work, uh, but still having an interest in the end outcome of of your issue, and i want to make the point that those coalition partners could even be corporate, right? Absolutely. I just think that something really interesting at a local station here where banks had allied with charities because they both had an interesting in preventing hydraulic fracturing that process of releasing gas from the from the crust in shale of the earth because the banks lose mortgage revenue when property values decline, and that happens around hydraulic fracking sites. So so companies had allied with charities. It certainly does. And, you know, even even when they when corporations don’t have a a personal stake, there’s a lot of a lot of corporate responsibility out there. Ah, latto corporations are getting involved in their communities and, you know, when you get those corporations involved, they can help fund from of that grassroots advocacy work and help you no help with the promotion. And, you know, grassroots advocacy is is a generally a low cost, um, product, but, you know, every every little bit is a resource drain on a small non-profit so corporate partners out there can can help with that funding on help, you know, help raise resource is help, you know, provide validation. You do all of those things? Yeah, all right, so just the fact that it doesn’t have to be another non-profit could be corporate, i imagine now, a little quickly because we only have a few minutes left their sights that could help you find coalition partners. Um, you know yes, yes, you know, pop box will will list organizations that are supporting, supporting or opposing, uh, legislation and certainly that’s. A key indicator. You find legislation that you’re interested in, you can look at supporters and the opposition. Okay, pick your side and you pick your team, so to speak. Uh, are there other sites? Uh, you know, not that i know. Okay, i think congress dot orden might, but i’m not. I’m not okay, but and then you could also use too traditional social media, right? Linked in facebook searches? Absolutely. The traditional social media. Uh, find out who is talking about your issue. Um, you know, it’s it’s much easier to research issue advocacy. Now that never given, given the amount people are talking about and the interest in it. Michael, what is it about this work that really moves you? And why do you why do you love this? You know, it, uh, i had always wanted to work, uh, with the non profit in the nonprofit sector. Uh, you know, i think part of it was growing up in a strong catholic family coming back. I always wanted to give back, um, but i also had a passion for advocacy and and politics and government and, you know, helping non-profits to make the impact is is really what drives me. You know, i’ve worked worked for and with several non-profit organizations, you know, doing health care, social justice, education on dh loved it every day. You know i often i feel you know, it’s been a long time since since i’ve actually worked. Uh, you know, i just love my work so much, you know, it’s like i don’t even have a real job. Alright, dahna co-branding grassroots can change the world. Grassroots can change the world. You know, it’s uh, you know, one person at a time. All right, michael brian, founder and principal of mob advocacy. You’ll find his blah but his blogged as you’ll find his, you’ll find him blah, bing at no that’s. Not true. Blogging at mob hyphen advocacy dot black spot dot com. Michael, thank you very much for being on. Thank you for having me. It was great great talking to you. I’m glad you got jordan. Thank you has been my pleasure. Now we take a break, and when we return, we got a little more live listener love going out and then tony’s take two and then scott koegler with divine devices. Stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city. In pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller, emotional freedom, and greg brady will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve? Save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot, or or a h a n j dot net. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Snusz you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz durney lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. Welcome back. We’ve got more live listener love going out. Lutherville, timonium, maryland that’s a heck of a town you got there. Lutherville, timonium in maryland, rest in virginia and quebec city in the province of quebec, canada. Welcome, welcome, everyone. Time for tony’s take to my block this week. I’m asking for your help and to show my gratitude, i will give you a free copy of my book. I have a three minute survey on charity registration, which is the requirements in every state and district of columbia that charities register with the authorities in every state where they are soliciting donations. And i wrote a book on this. Oh, and i happen to have the title of the book right here. What is it? What a coincidence. My book is called charity registration state by state guidelines for compliance, and it sells for as much as two hundred ninety nine dollars, depending on the size of your charity. But if you take this short survey, you can claim a free download of the book. You’re your input. Is is that important to me and there’s? A link to the survey on my blogged the post is called helped me out and get my book for free. My blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com? Well, treyz is expected to be, and so if you take the survey, you’ll get get a free book that is tony’s take two for friday, august seventeenth, the thirty fifth show of two thousand twelve. We had a listener joined since the last live listener love, and so before i bring scott in, i want to say hello to serbia. Hello, serbia. Scott koegler how are you? I’m good tony, how you doing? Great, you’re not survey. Are you serbia? No, no, i don’t think so. No, we have taken a wrong turn. We travelling to south carolina today, so but i think when you’re in the carolina, you’re in south carolina. Scott koegler of course, our regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, which you will find that end p tech news dot com and this month we’re talking about devices, scott there’s, tablets, there’s, laptops, desktops, handhelds how do we figure out what the heck is good for us? Yeah, kind of never ending, isn’t it? They used to be a pretty straight decision between desktops and laptops and that for real work. Those air still kind of the main options. But today, you know, you get, uh, tablets and bones everywhere from three and a half inches, ten point one inches on size, and pretty much they’ll do all the same thing. But also pretty much all that same thing is is usually less then, you know, real work. Another one generally don’t have keyboards and those kind of things so let’s kind of segment into those two categories. First foryou, portable before you, scott. Before you do that, i want to point out we know that you are the tech contributor because you don’t just say screen size up to ten inches. You say up to ten point one that extra tenth of an inch makes a difference. We gotta be precise. This is technology was the record demands precision. And scott is the man who delivers it. Okay, i’m sorry. That’s. Any inane interruption? Go ahead. That’s. Right. Um, so again, in the form of unity passes on the kind of work i need to do obviously gonna be sitting in the office. You can use either. And that that decision based you haven’t called back. Scott scott scott, stop for a minute. I’ll tell you what, you’re cutting out kind of badly. Give us a call back on the same number, but eight. One, eight, three, right. You know the number, but use eighty one, eighty three. Okay. And while scott is calling back, i’ve got some more live listener love. Hopefully he, uh he taps quickly on those on the phone. Who else you got? Pittsburgh. Oh, i mentioned pittsburgh, germany. Okay. Um, new york city, new york, new york. Excellent. Finally, somebody from new york. How come nobody from new jersey? Where is my mother? My mother and father are not listening to this show right now. Unless they’re in lutherville. Timonium, maryland. But i don’t think that’s them. I believe my mother and father are not listening. And ah, this week, is there my mom’s birthday and their anniversary? And i’m going out there, and they’re not listening to the show. You believe that? I mean, i may not go. I mean, go, go. We got scott back. Excellent. Scott, i don’t hear him. We have scott in the system. Scott oh, dial. Tone that never sounds good. Do i have to start and punishing my mother again? There he is. There he is. Okay, yeah, i’d rather talk to scott than admonish my mother. I’ll do that over the weekend. Okay, you’re going to break down our devices for us into two categories? I believe right. Let’s start with just desktop laptop as one category. And having said that, both of those generally well, i think, almost always have keyboards and keyboard is really key to the kind of things that people generally call work in an office or latto build it, you know, involves writing text using the keyboard for american trees and things like that and those air really much more suited to that kind of work than our tablets and cell phones and those kind of things. So the soft virtual keyboards that appear on tablets and phones were pretty well, but if you really need to get a lot done, you’re better off just having a keyboard on your hands. Uh, just, you know, more accurate. Better sure, sure. So it really depends on what you’re what you’re you’re functions are what you were like. What your goals. Are for the hardware, right? Exactly. Exactly. So let’s, just talk about the difference in key in, uh, laptops and desktops. One of the key difference of differences. There is the price. So the best tops are generally less expensive than laptops for a similar amount of power. Just because all the miniaturization that is required to make a laptop cost extra money. Okay, i was wondered why the bigger one is less generally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, they don’t care about the size. They’re just, you know, stuff all this stuff and then stick it on the floor. So, uh, so that’s kind of one way to do that. So if you got b b funds and you don’t need the larger screen that’s also available generally with a desktop, then you might want to opt for laptop because obviously it’s it’s portable, and you can take it with you. If you’re not always working at your desk, you can move it. Otherwise other places taken home, take it on a on an event or something like that. So there’s a difference there, of course. Sure. Um what what else? Well, what about software availability? Well, software is always a key and a lot of software, especially non-profit kind of things are going to run on generally windows windows operating systems, so that may even exclude using a mad uh, you need to really check your your software course. If you’re using a cloud based application, then you, khun pretty much use any kind of operating system doesn’t matter whether it’s windows or or mac or even it’s kind of lennox operating system very well. You make a very good point about what what platforms are supported by funk by applications that are important to you, there’s one that i using planned giving that does not support the apple os. So i have to have a programme called parallels on my apple computer to run windows just for that one program, but it is essential, right? Right, see that sometimes will dictate what you’ve done, and of course, once you’ve done that, not only have you spent more of your apple computer, but you spent more for the parallels, right? Exactly. So now you you know you really enough there, so you really need to decide what’s most important to you, and i kind of touched. On one of the reasons for getting a laptop and that is the portability, and so now we start to talk about, okay, what kind of jobs are you going to use that require portability? Uh, one that i think i said was that he’s going to an event on a laptop is good if you’re going to have a table inside you, but if you’re going to be wandering around the event and you want to interact with people, take pictures, maybe dio email sign ups for your newsletters, those kind of things, uh, a tablet is probably the perfect device for that kind of thing, a smartphone, probably a little bit less than perfect, although you can certainly do those things, but again, you get smaller keyboard, you know much a little bit more difficult to use quickly, okay? And there’s so many tablets out there. Besides, the ipad is the google nexus and the microsoft surface. Samsung has one, i think the galaxy i mean there’s so many tablets, yeah, there’s a huge variety, in fact, buy-in while apples still dominates with the ipad, i just survey that the android operating system, which is what’s used in pretty much every town would accept apple and been in windows tablet, so andrew, it is outselling apple on a poor unit basis, so it just kind of interesting. Yeah, yeah. So i know it doesn’t say if any better or worse generally means it’s less expensive devices, they’re less expensive. Okay, um, but at the same time, i’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s the application that counts, you know, if you can get to the internet and you can access the functions that you need, it really doesn’t matter so dahna look at your budget, see what it is that you need those the system that you’re looking at, support the function you need and within your budget, and then go ahead and buy it, you know, they pretty much all work okay and the features on not necessarily just sticking with tablets, but just across all of them. I was looking i was when i was researching our segment on dh i actually do research, i know it doesn’t sound like it, but actually do research for the show and prepare the show. I found something the iphone headphones, you know, the white headphones that you get, and they have a little tiny panel on them built into the built into the wire and there’s ten i found a site that there are an article had ten different things that you could do with that little with that little panel like you could if you tap the middle of it two times that’s to pick up a phone call, for instance, or, like, tap it once and that’ll put a put a phone call through tio to voicemail. When you’re getting if you’re getting a call while you’re listening in to skip a song, you do a triple tap or what? It’s incredible just on this tiny little skinny panel the features on that are available, right there’s? One more hidden one if you stand on your head and you stick it dunaj it’ll actually call your mother, okay? I don’t really appreciate sarcasm on this show. I play things pretty straight pretty close to the vest. Now. Watch, watch. You know, sarcasm is a very dangerous thing. Uh, but you know that point there’s there are many features on many systems, computers and even software, and the rule of thumb is eighty twenty just like, you know, all the eighty twenty rules where eighty percent of the people used twenty percent of the function, yeah, just like you have an iphone, right? I do have that i do, and you’d never do those things. No, i didn’t know that i could ignore it incoming call, buy long pressing the center button twice or so you know, i just i just usually hang up on it, but, you know, you could do that. Yes, i’ve noticed, okay, so what? We’re going to take a break. So when you were little chuckle mode here we’ll take a break, but i want to send more live listener love it’s, it’s pouring in san angelo, texas, san diego, california, rockville center, new york. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We’re talking to scott koegler, the regular regular tech contributor about divine devices were going to keep talking about that subject. Maybe not with scott koegler might hang up on him after this break. Talking dot com. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks band radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot com let’s monte m o nt y monty taylor dot com how’s your game want to improve your performance, focus and motivation than you need aspire athletic consulting, stop second guessing yourself, move your game to the next level, bring back the fun of the sport, help your child build confidence and self esteem through sports. Contact dale it aspire, athletic consulting for a free fifteen minute power session to get unstuck. Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back, scott kapin did you hang up on us? I am still here. Okay, dear chagrin. Damn. Not yet. All right, now, all these features and all there’s a pact with the stuff that most people don’t use, you have to you have to wonder about what your employees are capable of learning. Well, exactly. And and how much do you want them to learn? How much extra time do you want to put in on finding out things that they may never use? Uh, there’s a big difference between buying a computer to operate your business and one for your personal life. I generally try to minimize the expense and the feature set of business computers because typically, you know, i’ve been unemployed. I need them to do three things. Four, maybe five, generally, not twenty. And if i say i’m buying something for myself on much more liberal in terms of the kinds of features and even the amount of money that i’m gonna want to spend interesting that’s an important distinction. Yeah, you don’t want to be thinking about you don’t want to be making that crossover. Yeah, this is this is for other people to be using to be efficient in your business exactly, and also in terms of employees abilities there, maybe training costs, but actually be hard costs not only in time, but but if, if the saw if the hardware is very different, i mean, you could end up having to pay somebody like the network it altogether, and then to train employees to operate the network and then as well as operate the devices exactly you want to make. It is standardized, as you can within the organization, so that one person could get up and walk in, walk to another computer and do the same job and not have to relearn. You know where the tabs on where the keyboard durney that’s one of the things that happens between pieces and max, although it’s it’s less it’s less of an issue anymore. But, you know, the key and the maki kind of get confusing sometimes for people that try to make that transition, even though the actual applications may run exactly the thing. Yeah, yeah, i see that because my my office computing, his apple and all my clients use windows and i do a lot of work in my client’s offices, right. So i have special challenges anyway. But talk about that’s different show. Okay, there are you have some ideas for sites where we can find reviews. I love reading user reviews. I love that that the web enables that. Well, there’s two things that i would recommend one is just a scene at dot com, which is not really user reviews, but they are there. I’m not going to say that professionally generated reviews, they’re actually automatically generated reviews, so they’re standardized. How they do that automatically is a whole other topic. Fascinating. I used i used that scene. That site, those air not well, there you are, right. I knew they weren’t user reviews, but there isn’t a live person writing these things. Generally, not somebody looks at, um uh, really? Uh, yeah, they are actually generated by automated system. Okay, they pull your pretty well, um, i’m not sure right now they do a good job, but the other is just, uh, just do a search online for a review of this type in review. And then in the name of the product that you’re looking for. And course, the good part about that is that you will get a just a huge list of possible reviews. The bad part is that, uh, most of them will be completely bogus and badly written. You never really know. Yeah, right now does, like amazon dot com. And you could you could go to amazon and read reviews, but not necessarily buy the product from amazon. Do that. Do you know if they do, you have to be legitimate user to review a product on amazon. Do you know you have to? You have to register on amazon, but you don’t actually have to have purchased the product. Okay, so that kind of, you know, in-kind negates some of the reliability hoexter tenses suggest that the credibility is not as high as it ought to be. Okay, right. Okay. But there are lots of consider. Well, there’s consumer reports. Yes. Yes. There are some, uh, some reliable reporting, you know, agencies, they used to be quite a quite a few more. In fact, i used to do computer and software reviews. Yeah, when i was doing, you know, muchmore freelance writing. Um, but, uh, those reviews have have gone away in favor of user reviews, you know? Personally, i don’t think they’re quite reliable is my own my own wonderful ladies? Yeah, well, i can tell you and there’s probably a reason you’re not in that business any longer. Exactly. Yeah. All right. But now, you know, consumer reports, i subscribe to them for a year. I think i think it’s thirty dollars for a year and you can access all their online. Not not to the written subscription, but for the online. I mean, i go to them when i’m going to spend, i don’t know, like more than a couple hundred dollars on something i go to consumer reports their objective. They don’t have advertising. They don’t take advertising dollars. Yeah, so all right. We have just another minute. A half or so before break before we wrap up. Scott, what else do you want? What else did i keep you from saying? I think really the most important issue is, you know, people always asked, you know, help me buy a computer and i pretty much always start out with what’s your budget. Because it’s pretty easy to start looking. And then, you know, feature creep sets in and know what’s another fifty dollars. Here, what’s another hundred years there, and all of a sudden, you know that six hundred dollars desktop computer that would actually do a wonderful job for you terms into a you know, fifteen hundred dollar laptop with, you know who knows what kinds of extra features agree. Okay, same thing is renovating. Same thing is renovating your bathroom. Your kitchen? Yes. Yes, exactly. Don’t you don’t need the stainless steel pulls on the kitchen drawers. When? When grass will do just fine. Right? Alright, tigress. Okay. Excellent. Scott. Good time today. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on. Scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. Which you’ll find it n p tech news. Dot com. Thanks very much, scott. Figure. Thank you. More live listener love joining us boring oregon alcohol in california. I used to go to i want to alcohol in. Once i spent two weeks in alcohol and kelowna, british columbia, canada. That’s two two different provinces. Also, quebec represented outstanding. I want to thank scott koegler, of course, and also michael o’brien for being on the show today. Next week, campaign volunteers rich foss is the author of green light fund-raising we’ll talk about recruiting the best volunteers for your campaign, and jean takagi and emily chan are legal contributors returned with law wisdom from san francisco, have you checked out? Are linked in group odds are you have not because there’s over a thousand listeners and there are not a thousand members of the lincoln group so ajar you have not been there, but you ought to be. Also, i host a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. It is called fund-raising fundamentals it’s, a ten minute monthly podcast devoted only to fund-raising though i have a summer siri’s on grant seeking the latest is relationship building with foundation program officers and the first two in the siri’s were researching foundations and writing winning proposals like this show it’s always experts whose brains on picking for your benefit. It’s called fund-raising fundamentals it’s on the conical website chronicle of philanthropy and it’s also on itunes, continuing to wish you good luck the way performers do around the world because i feel like doing it. I don’t know it’s, just fun last week, you may recall, was from german, the german orthopedic surgeons house owned buy-in bro, because they wanted you to break. Your neck and your leg. Those the germans this week from australia, chuck us. I’m wishing you chalk us because in the early nineteen hundreds, chicken was a special meal and most shows paid performers fees based on how many people were in the audience. So a full house meant that the performers would be able to afford chicken after the show, and one former one performer would peek out of the curtain. And if it was a full house, they would tell the troupe, chalk us, which is the slang for chicken and now it’s used by australian entertainers before a show as a good wish for a successful turnout. So i’m wishing you focus. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is our line producer and also my language instructor from germany and australia and others. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules i very much hope you will be with me next week. That would be the twenty fourth of august friday two thousand twelve one two two p m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting which is always at talking alternative dot com. Hyre co-branding dick dick tooting. Getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network waiting to get in. Cubine hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Hyre this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective be happier and make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking.
