I went out to the PyOhio conference over the weekend down in Columbus, OH and an idea's been eating at me since a conversation with a couple of the organizers on Saturday night. We were talking about the GiveCamp that had happened the weekend before and how great efforts like that are, but there's a problem with that model: Who will support it?

In reality, the initial development of a software solution is the least expensive part of the cost of the software life cycle while maintenance of bugs and future enhancements to keep up with a changing business is the most expensive, possibly up to 90% of the cost. If a non-profit doesn't have the resources to create and implement the software, they most certainly don't have the resources to maintain it.

All the non-profit work I've ever done has needed support eventually and with just one person working on a volunteer basis, I can't keep up with that over the long term. Also, non-profits have a very high turnover rate and that means almost constant training on any solutions that are put in place. That isn't cheap either and just adds to the cost of custom software for their business. It doesn't matter how much those solutions might be helping them, if they lose the expertise to use them, all those wonderful solutions are worthless.

So on the last day of the PyOhio event I gave lightning talk about these ideas. It wasn't anything too definite, I just wanted to see if it might call people to action and just get a general feel for what everyone thought. The talk centered around the fact that I think we need to study this problem a little closer and see if there isn't an online community that could be built up to handle these problems. Just as open source software needs documentors and testers, they also need implementers and supporters.

One of the big surprises for me was, when I asked the audience how many of them had done volunteer work for non-profits, about half the crowd raised their hands. I figured it would be a high number, but I didn't expect that high. It's great to see and I certainly don't think people should stop doing that, but in order to support the long term viability of these solutions, we need to be able to support them and keep them running after they've been implemented.

One thing that came out of this that I didn't know was that there was a group in Portland called DayOn.org that is trying to tackle this problem too. I'm going to look more into this. At first glance, it looks like a service that links up non-profits with volunteers and kinds of ends it's relationship there. The idea I have in my head is almost like a volunteer-based company that is able to take clients in order to build a trust relationship with them. Then it would be able to act not only as developers but also as sys admins with access to their data and server. This has a huge potential for problems though, some of which I hope to talk about in a future post. But definitely check out DayOn.org if any of this interests you now.

It looks like my long referenced idea of doing web design and development for non-profits is finally getting off the ground. It's not exactly official yet, but I'll soon be part of a company with long time friend Alan Phillips focused on non-profits and their internet related needs called Ananda Web Development, LLC.

If you happen to know anyone that might need these services local to Akron, Ohio (or maybe even not local to Akron, Ohio) drop our name out there. My main goal here is to help a whole lot of people and maybe even transition to doing it part-time. We'll see how it goes, though. Either way, I'm pretty excited and I think we'll be able to do a lot of good.

I was just trying to order tickets on a scenic railroad in the area. It turned into a mini-trial.

The web site is a complete mess; chaotic, slapped together and dead end after dead end. I have a feeling that most of the people that go to the site need three things, an easy to use schedule, a list of special events and a way to order tickets. The list of special event seems to be the only thing they got right, but for me, who just wants to order tickets on the regular schedule, the whole site seems backwards to what I'm trying to do. Where's the big button that says "Plan your trip"? Better yet, where's the big button that says "Order tickets here"?

After about an hour of searching, I finally figured out that I can't order tickets from the site. I see that as a major problem. Instead I called their toll-free number, which seems to be a corporate line because making reservations was option number 6, which I found out after listening to every other option for about a minute. Then I was put on hold for another three minutes. Really? You're that busy on a Friday morning?

I just want to give you money! Real money. I know what day and time I want to go (I think, it was hard deciphering your online schedule) and I have my credit card right here. It should never be hard for your clients to give you money. Ever. It would be simple to set up Paypal on the site to order tickets. A complete reservation system wouldn't be that hard to build. Heck, get a dedicated lines for reservations so people aren't sitting through option after option on your call tree! If you're worried about how much that would cost, I can guarantee that you're losing sales because you don't have it.

The hard part of a sale should be convincing the customer to buy your product, not taking the customer's money. If it is, you should probably try and fix it.