Summary

I had a really hard time coming up for an idea for this project. I was thinking too technically, and I'm definitely not a technical thinker. When I thought of Charities Connect, it really was a perfect combination of my love for helping people, my passion for communicating...and my need to have a technical entrepreneur idea for my blog project. What's exciting about it is that I think it could be real. I can't lie and say I didn't have a few fantasies about actually doing this: starting my own company that connects charities online, starting small but eventually hiring a boat load of people, and making a living off of doing this. I think I have the vision and the necessary people skills but make something like this work, but the thought is kind of scary. I think I'll stick to being a writer.  But if I got anything out of this project, it was how important communication over the internet is. Many of the comments I have gotten reflecting that this problem is a real one in the charity world, and it could take the burden off of so many charities to have a service like this. It's comforting to know that in whatever I do, in the 21st century the internet is an undeniably important medium of communication, and if I want to be successful, I should embrace it. 

Here's the blog posts I've commented on:

http://dappersquares.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-big-new-idea.html?showComment=1320109807971#c6807208338336730299

http://erinarose.blogspot.com/2011/09/week-1-introduction.html?showComment=1320109102841#c6483562562199974384

http://ridethesilverbullettrain.blogspot.com/2011/09/first-post.html#comments





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Databases

Although databases were covered in today's lecture and not last week's, I'm going to blog about them today because of their importance to websites like Charities Connect. The reasons most websites use databases are that they help companies manage vast amount of information, perform quick queries, and make fast decisions without about information. For Charities Connect's website, we have to store and organize information about charities, events, sponsors, companies, and how those things relate to each other. There is no way Charities Connect could handle organizing and presenting all of the information that will be on its website without a database.
In a pre-database world, companies would have to use physical filing cabinets to store and organize information. Soon, this would evolve to storing information on word documents, and eventually on excel. But, none of these methods can hold a candle to what a database is capable of doing. A database is basically a set of tables. Every one of these tables consists of an attribute. In the case of Charities Connect, such attributes would include: the charity name, the cause, the founders and their information, etc. We would also need to organize events into attributes (location, time, type, food, etc.). Obviously, there's a lot of information that needs to be sorted. Each table will be given a primary key, which is a unique attribute of each table.
The great thing about databases are that they can form relationships between data. For example, I could go into the database and connect a charity, to an event, to whatever company is sponsoring it. The database would synchronize that data accordingly. The foreign key is that part of the database forms those relationships. If I use the Relational Database Management System, my database will also include features like security management, backup and recovery management, and multi-user management.
Database data management is not only important for internal organization of data, but is also used to make the Charities Connect website user-friendly. Without the organization of data into different categories, the website itself wouldn't be organized, and therefore hard to use. Usability is key when designing a  social media website. When someone managing a charity logs on the Charities Connect, I want them to see what other charities are doing, what companies are looking for charities to sponsor, what people are saying about their charities, and more. This all needs to be within the users reach, and this information needs to be easy to access.

Seth Gobin's Blog

I found Seth Gobin's blog through a Wall Street Journal article called, "15 Entrepreneur Blogs Worth Reading." Seth caught my attention because he was the founder of Yoyodyne, an interactive direct-marketing company, which was bought by Yahoo in 1998, which he was Vice-president of Direct Marketing for (I recently wrote a four page research paper on Yahoo!). He has also written thirteen books, and everyone of them has been a bestseller. He has been called "America's Greatest Marketer," by American Way Magazine, and according to his bio, his blog is the the most popular blog in the world written by a single individual. His latest company is Squidoo.com, which allows users to build a Web page about anything their passionate about.
And his latest blog post was about that: doing what your passionate about. But, he transferred this into the marketing world. "Marketing-focused almost never works, he wrote. "When you choose to make something magical instead, when you bring passion instead of calculation to your work, you're as least as likely to get it right as the guy who is selling out."
Seth's blog covers everything from powerpoints to simple marketing strategies such as "open communication." While sometimes his advise seems to be general enough to apply to everyday life,  he does sometimes talk about his company Squidoo. For example, the company recently released a magazine.
Here's the link: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

I'm a lot more interested in this than I thought it would be.

Bits and Bytes

Although like any social media site, the user can be oblivious to the technical aspects that go into the website; the people who design and program Charities Connect can not. It is important that the people in charge of the technical aspect of Charities Connect be familiar with everything discussed in Jeff's lecture on bits and bytes.
If our website ever needs audio, probably for a video promoting a charity event, the audio of the video would be played in MP3 form. MP3 is compressed audio recording takes away all the frequencies that can't be heard by a human ear. MP3 file is the standard form of file that would be used when uploading audio and video with audio.
Our programmers will also need to have an understanding of binary code, the "language" of computers. A binary digit is called a "bit," and 8 of these together makes up a "byte." We would use UNICODE when programming rather ASCII. ASCII is limited, and doesn't offer other languages. In hopes of someday becoming international, UNICODE is an obvious choice, for it provides more than 100,000 characters and can be translated into many different languages.

Input/Output

This week's lecture was about input and output devices. For example, we discussed the digital camera. The pixels per inch (PPI) divided by the resolution of the camera determines the size of the picture you'll need to have a clear image. This may seem like a simple thing to know, but when we help charities manage their events, promote their events, and later, tell the world about the (hopeful) success of these events, its important to use this to make the visuals as clear as possible. In fact, it would be ideal to have a team of photographers just to cover charity events connected with Charities Connect.
Another thing we talked about briefly last week was Quick Response Codes. Since QR Codes are so easy and free to use, this is a perfect way to help promote charities, and have a little fun while you're doing it. Charities could use these to give more information to the public about what they're doing in an easy to use way that more people are becoming familiar with. In fact, companies that want to be associated with charities can take advantage of this, and put special offers in QR codes put out by charities.

Computer Forensics

Because my company is based on charities and businesses putting information online, it is very important that we keep all that information save. Although most of the information would be more for informative purposes, it's very important that it stays safe and in the control of the charity or company that put it out there.
Because safety is so important to us, we would not require charities and businesses to put in any financial information in our system. Since Charities Connect is modeled after more of a social-networking type website, they wouldn't need to put more information than you would say, in your facebook profile. Communication is what we're after, and we don't want to put unnecessary information on the internet.
To avoid identity theft, each charity and business will have a password that allows them to log on and share/change information. Also, each charity and business will receive a background check before being allowed to make an account. Because Charities Connect is a free service, we want to ensure the quality and honestly of our charities before we let them make an account with us. 

Excel

          Really any business, even one based online, needs to keep track of data. Excel is the best way to accomplish this. Because I don't want to charge the charities for joining CC, I would need to get support from companies through advertising. Or if the charities want to run an advertisement, they can pay a fee and have an ad on our website as well! Too keep track of the companies/charities who want to pay for ads on Charities Connect, we will put their data and how much they've paid on an excel spread sheet, or even a pivot table, if I'm feeling particularly ambitious.
         I could also use Excel to keep track of the activity going on within the website. I could use functions such as AVERAGE, to see how often charities are active on the website. I could also easily compare charities and see which ones are using the website the most. Excel will help me organize the activity I must keep track of to make sure Charities Connect is running smoothly and being put to good use.


          
 

Blog Post #1

       My idea is to launch a website called charitiesconnect.com. Charities Connect (or CC as it will so hiply be called) will be a "social networking" style website for charities and businesses. The goal of the website will be to connect charities and charities, charities that need sponsors to businesses, and businesses that want to sponsor charities to charities. There are websites like this out there, but Charities Connect will be different because we will not only connect charities to businesses, but help promote them. We'll give them access to big businesses as well as notifty them when an opportunity arises to promote/get their charity involved in a major event. Similar to a normal social networking site, there will be an "open dialogue" atmosphere, and we will encourage charities to connect with other charities in their area. Even better, not just charities and businesses can make a profile! We will also have a section for volunteer work, and those kind of organizations connect and promote themselves as well.
       Obviously, the best way to promote a social networking site is through other sources of social networking. I can promote my website through Twitter by easily finding charities and businesses to connect to. Because twitter allows you to so easily connect with people with similar interests, contacting future users of charitiesconnect.com will be a piece of cake. If we have a powerful presence on Twitter, charities and businesses will know we will use that power to help them achieve their goals.
      We could also have a CC twitter account, letting not only charities and companies, but anyone who cares to follow us know about what local charity events are taking place in their area, or where they can go to donate to causes they care about. Since our website is all about connection, we will stay connected using Twitter, and other popular forms of social media.