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Welcome everyone to our TechSoup webinar, App it Up! We are very excited
to have you all here with us today, and to welcome our speakers as well.
So we will go ahead and start with hearing a little bit from them.
We have Ariel Gilbert-Knight and Shawn Michael.
So Ariel, will you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Ariel: Sure. Hi everyone. I am Ariel Gilbert-Knight. I am a technology analyst here at TechSoup,
and I have been working on the App it Up! project for the last couple of months,
and I'm really excited to share what we've learned so far.
Stephanie: Wonderful. Thank you so much. And Shawn, could you introduce yourself?
Shawn: Sure. I'm Shawn Michael. I've been with the NPower Network for a little over 10 years,
and most recently as a senior technology manager at NPower Northwest.
And we have developed a slew of apps, and I'm going to be talking about
how we get through the thought process and development process.
Stephanie: Wonderful. Thank you. So we've got great speaker's today that can help us
learn a little bit more about what apps are out there and available,
and also how to create your own as well.
So I am the facilitator. I am Stephanie Gerding. And I am the training and outreach manager
for the TechSoup for Libraries Program. And also assisting with chat today we have Kyla Hunt.
She is our webinar manager. So thank you all for joining us.
And just a little bit more about what we are covering today, we are going to start off
by talking just a little bit about who is TechSoup, and then we will go into talking
more about the App it Up project, what we've learned. And then Shawn will share
some app-propriate strategies for creating your own app.
And then we will have time for questions and answers at the end as well.
So just so you kow a little bit about TechSoup if you are not familiar already, we are a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization. And we serve a lot of organizations distributing technology donations,
over 6.3 million, and help nonprofits save money, more than $1.8 billion in 33 countries
around the world. What we are really working towards is a time when every library
and nonprofit and social benefit organization on the planet really has the technology, resources
and knowledge that they need to operate at their full potential.
So we are really glad to have you join us today. If you don't know much about TechSou
or would like to learn more, please visit our website, TechSoup.org where you will find
a lot of additional information and resources including technology, articles, products
that are donations that nonprofits and public libraries do qualify for,
and we also have a very active blog, so a lot of good information there for you.
And at this point I will go ahead and turn it over to Ariel so that she can tell us a little bit more
about the App it Up project, and what we have learned as a result of it.
[Silence]
Ariel: Sorry, I think I was muted. Hi. So I'm going to talk a little bit about TechSoup's App it Up project.
But before we get into that, I am going to talk about a couple of definitions.
First, what is an app? An app is short for application which basically just means
an app is a kind of software. But generally there are smaller applications that have this limited
or targeted functionality. So we are not talking about a full big Microsoft Office Suite
type application, but just a little bit of software that does something interesting.
Some of the examples of apps we have on this slide are mobile apps which are I think
what most of us think of when we think of apps. These are the stand alone apps
that you download onto your mobile device, so something like the foursquare a
that we show here or a search app like Bing.
But apps can also be plug-ins that add onto an existing tool's functionality.
So something like a browser tool bar plug-in like the example we have here
is the Delicious browser plug-in, or in add-on to another system, something like Dynamic CRM
for example has an app store or exchange that allows you to do these add-ons
that allow you to customize and really expand on the existing tool's functionality.
Apps can also be widgets, things like a widget that shows your organization's Twitter feed
on the side of your website. They are these things that are fairly easy to just plug-in
to your existing website without a lot of sophisticated coding or technical knowledge.
Apps can also be templates that make doing your daily work easier.
The example we have here are Share Point templates that may creating and maintaining
your website content easier.
My slides aren't advancing.
There we go. Thanks.
The next thing I wanted to talk about is an app exchange. An app exchange is just a place
where people can go to search for, learn about, and find apps.
The example we have here is the Windows App Market Place for Windows phones.
But app exchanges can also be collections of apps that are created by a certain company
or organization or that meet a certain kind of need.
One of my favorite examples of this is Random Hacks of Kindness.
They are an organization that hosts hacking and coding events to create apps
that help meet identified community needs, and then they make these solutions
that have been developed publicly available.
App exchanges can also be collections of apps that are targeted at certain groups.
The Apps Gallery from an organization called Hacking Autism is a nice example
of collecting apps that are useful for certain groups. In this case they have gathered up apps
that children with autism respond to. So they didn't create these apps,
but they have gathered them up and shared a little bit about them
that they think would be useful to their community.
There are plenty of other of examples of collections of interesting apps.
Librarians actually are especially good about gathering and sharing mobile resources.
But this is just to give you an idea of the kinds of ways that apps can be gathered up and shared.
And I mention all of this because these are the things we've spent months talking about
and researching and writing about in the App it Up project. So what is App it Up?
App it Up is a TechSoup project that was generously funded by Microsoft
that asks a question which is, what does it take for a nonprofit to download and use an a
they didn't develop themselves?
And this turned out to be a pretty big question. We had to figure out what apps are out there,
what apps organizations are using, what they want an app to do,
and what the barriers to creating and using apps are.
So what we did to try to answer this question was we engaged with US-based nonprofits
and libraries to identify the apps that are out there, what they want from apps,
and why they aren't using apps if they aren't using them. We did this through a series
of surveys and interviews, and then just a lot of research and reading on our own.
Longer term we want to figure out how TechSoup with Microsoft's support
can best support the use of apps by nonprofits and libraries. And we are still figuring this out,
like what would be most useful for TechSoup to do? Should we be just highlighting
and showcasing the relevant apps that are already out there? Or building an app exchange,
kind of a central place that people can find nonprofit and library relevant apps?
Or just highlighting the needs that are out there that aren't being met and encouraging developers
to help meet those needs? We are working on refining that goal over the coming year.
That said, we've learned a lot already. One of the things that we did as I mentioned,
is a number of surveys. And take the survey data with a grain of salt. There are a few caveats.
It wasn't a very scientific survey. It was pretty self selecting, meaning anybody
who wasn't interested in apps at all probably wouldn't answer an app survey in the first place.
And we didn't make a real effort to do a representative sample of different kinds
and types and sizes of organizations. So keep that in mind as I talk about these statistics.
One of the interesting things was that organizations are already using apps.
Almost 70% of our respondents said yes, they are using apps at their nonprofit or library.
And they are using apps for every day stuff, mostly the largest number of respondents
said to do their daily work, but also to engage with patrons and to a lesser extent
to allow patrons to access their services. So the "engage with patrons"
was the more outreach oriented, and "engaging with the services"
would be more having people access their organization's services.
But the really interesting thing that I found here was the answers to the question,
if you don't use apps, why don't you use them? And only 17% of the respondents said
they weren't using apps because they were just not interested at all.
The main barrier was not having the resources to support it; 55% of respondents said that.
And there is also a sense that there isn't always an app that meets their needs.
So what this tells us is that organizations are using apps. And if they felt there were apps
that were a good fit or had the resources to support them,
they would probably be using them even more.
The comments in the surveys and from our interviews support what we found
in the survey data itself. I am not going to read through each of these quotes,
but they are just samples that illustrate some key learnings which are that organizations
do find apps a valuable and useful. And we obviously agree here at TechSoup, we love apps.
Apps are not just useful, but they are also fun and exciting and kind of cool.
They're very interested in the possibilities presented by apps, but — and there is a 'but' —
there is a sense that there isn't always an app that meets an organization's needs
and that creating an app would be complicated and expensive.
So one of the things that we want to do through App it Up is to help change that perception
both by highlighting and sharing the great apps that are already out there,
but also by helping to get some wish list apps built. We really want to make it easy
to find the apps that will help nonprofits and libraries do their work
and provide enough information to be able to put those apps to good use.
So one of the ways we are thinking about doing this is trying to get
some of the wish list app needs address. One of the questions we asked in our surveys was,
if you could build an app, what would it do? And we got an amazingly broad range of answers.
These are just a couple of examples. So for example,
apps that would provide direct aid access and information, so the ability to search
for open beds in a particular region for domestic violence victims.
Or in the area of volunteer management, a way to easily track volunteer hours and time on the go.
And for libraries — I love this one — app based games that help people better understand
the library resources and layout, so like a mobile device based scavenger hunt
that taught people how to use the library.
So one of the ways we are thinking about helping to meet those needs is through App for Good
type events in organizations like Random Hacks of Kindness like I mentioned earlier.
Code for America is another good example of this sort of organization.
They are a nonprofit that helps identify projects that could benefit
from web based technology solutions, and then they recruit a development team
to provide those solutions. And Challenge.gov is another one that people submit ideas,
social problems that need fixing, and Challenge.gov encourages
and rewards those who come up with solutions. So there are all of these coding for good
kind of organizations and efforts. And one of the things that TechSoup will be doing
is working with our partners to hopefully see if we can get some of these identified nonprofit
and library wish list apps into these kind of challenge events
to maybe get some of these apps actually built.
Another way we are thinking of helping is increasing the reach of apps
that are already out there that were created by capacity building organizations
that are relevant to nonprofits and libraries. The examples on here are Storywall
which is based on Microsoft's technology — I think primarily Silver Light —
that allows people to easily tell their stories digitally. So they can put videos
and pictures about how they are engaging with their communities.
And Microsoft is working with NPower to make this technology available
to the nonprofit community.
Aidmatrix is another one. It is a set of we Bbased fundraising and donation management tools.
And it was created by a nonprofit for nonprofits. So TechSoup can help identify these resources
that are out there, and share them with the nonprofit community.
So what are we doing with all of this information that we have gathered up?
We are sharing it with the nonprofit and library community of course.
So we have launched an App Showcase page on TechSoup.org.
And one of the things that we are doing there is focusing and highlighting apps
that are useful and relevant to the nonprofit and library community, or just cool and interesting,
and might inspire you to think about apps in new and different ways.
We are also getting your feedback how you are using them, what other apps are out there,
what kind of additional information do you need in order to start using
or more efficiently use apps at your organization.
One of the reasons I think this is really great is that there are so many apps out there
it is hard to figure out what the good ones are, or how they might be relevant in a nonprofit
or library context. So we are providing that context in the App it Up Showcase.
So we are sharing the good apps that we've found and telling you why
and how they are being used by organizations. So it's really deeply embedded
in the nonprofit and library context, like what is relevant to those types of organizations.
One thing I wanted to highlight about this page is the list of resources over on the right in the circle.
And here we've gathered up the additional content that we've developed
through the App it Up project. So we have done a number of Cool App Roundups
on the TechSoup blog. For example we have had Green Apps, and office apps for mobile devices,
and disaster relief apps. All of those roundups are included there as well as additional content
such as a mobile device policies for your organization, mobile device security
and other related topics. And this page is evolving over time and the content is changing.
So check back. There is very cool stuff on there.
Yes, and I just got a reminder that there was a library Cool App Roundup too recently.
So this is a great place to check and see what interesting stuff
we are discovering through the project.
So one of the questions we asked in our surveys was what kind of apps are you using right now?
And there were a lot of interesting answers. A lot of the apps that people were using
were the big apps that I think most people use, the Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter type apps.
But there were many interesting things that sort of surfaced through this process,
one of which is a notification app called J-ResQ. It was developed in response
to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It allows people in a disaster area to provide notifications,
updates, and a GPS based location. And then concerned parties can search J-ResQ's site
to find updates about the person. Locavore is another interesting app. I am a big fan of it,
because I am a cook and I really like to eat locally. So Locavore allows you to find
what is in season in your area. It is pretty cool.
Another interesting thing we discovered through the project is that organizations are creating
their own apps. One example of this is the Humane Society of Whitley County
mentioned that they had developed their own app which shows shelter and adoption information.
It shows adoptable animals, news, upcoming events, and links for giving donations.
So it is a fairly simple app that really provides a lot of information about their organization.
Another interesting example was from Public Art Omaha. And they developed their own
public art discovery app, so there is a we Bbased database of public art in the Omaha area
that you can search using your mobile device, just a web enabled mobile device.
And they also have downloadable apps so you can use your GPS on your device
in order to see what cool interesting public art is near your location.
The really interesting thing about Public Art Omaha is that they created their app,
or their app was created by their local college's computer science department.
So it allowed the students to get real-world experience in creating an a
and help their community. And I thought that was a really great example
of how you can get apps built without having to have the expertise in-house,
or necessarily spend a huge amount of money to do it.
A couple of other interesting apps that surfaced in our discussions about the App it Up project,
one is Dropbox. And this was mentioned frequently and much loved by nonprofits
and libraries. Dropbox is a file sharing app that allows you to easily transfer content,
files of various kinds. And it is available in an online web version
and for most smart devices. So it is pretty cool. It is not device specific.
TweetDeck is an app that allows you to centrally manage your organization's Twitter
and Facebook accounts. And the nice thing about that is if you have multiple Twitter feeds
and a Facebook account, you can centrally manage all of that
and it let's you build a clear picture of your followers in supporters
across various social media channels, as well as have consistent messaging
across those channels.
Twitpic is a Twitter integrated photo sharing a
which allows you to easily share photos with your followers via Twitter.
The next one is my personal favorite, Evernote. It is a notetaking app.
It allows you to save your ideas and notes and links, and more importantly, organize them.
You can search your notes by key words, tags, text. And it works with nearly every computer
and mobile device. So for example I can use a desktop version on my work laptop,
and I have access to all the same information on my mobile phone and my laptop at home.
A couple of other apps that came up through our investigation of our Cool App Round-u
on disaster relief are the FEMA app which contains disaster preparedness information
for a variety of potential disasters, and the Relief Central.
It's a free disaster relief information resource. It includes a lot of downloaded information
so even if you don't actually have Internet access or cellphone service,
you can still access basic information as well as if you do happen to have that kind of access
it does news updates and alerts about disaster information.
So I think that was it for my section. I am going to hand it over to Stephanie.
Stephanie: Great. Thank you so much. That was a lot of great information to share.
And I just have a few library apps that I wanted to share as well.
If any of you have used these yourself, it would be great to hear from you all.
But a lot of the library vendors are offering apps now as part of their products
which I've seen a lot of libraries that have been able to make the resources available
through apps which is a great thing to do.
Also, the New York Public Library created their own app and actually won
the Apple Education App of the Year in 2011 for their Biblion which archived the 1939 World Fair,
so a really gorgeous example of an app that you might want to check out.
And also in the UK there are some apps that they are using in London their capital city
to make their library services known so you can find the library branches,
or find news and events and activities, but also access their online catalogue as well.
And then Orange County Library System has an app that I find really fun that's called "Shake It."
So you can search within their catalogue, and you can do it by genre or by types of materials,
or you can just randomly have it suggest something by shaking the a
to have it come up for you. So we would love to know beyond these apps as well
which ones you really enjoy and we can share those out as well.
So if you want to use your chat to type those in, that would be really great.
And now that we've talked about apps that are available already,
if you are wanting to create your own, we are going to hear from Shawn Michael
who's going to tell us more about that.
Shawn: Hi everybody. Thanks again for being a part of today's presentation.
I think that what TechSoup is providing in this webinar and this program is just fantastic.
I know what confusion some nonprofits and libraries can go through in trying to figure out
what apps work, what are good apps as opposed to phishing
or other sort of malware apps. And so I am really supportive of this program.
Stephanie: Thank you Shawn. And Shawn, you might want to check and see
if you can turn up your audio. We are getting some comments that it is a little hard to hear you,
so if you could do that that would be really great.
Shawn: Okay, how is that? Is it better?
Stephanie: Yeah, that's the for me.
Shawn: Great, okay. So what I want to talk a little bit about is that NPower has been around
for about 10 years working with nonprofits. We are a nonprofit ourselves
and have been really focusing on making sure that nonprofits have the technology
that they need to succeed in their mission. And going forward what we would like to do
is really move into that innovative space. How can we help nonprofits improve
and increase their impact in world. And so apps ended up being — and the timing of it
was really great — the app ended up being a way that we were moving forward.
I am going to go ahead and start talking to you a little bit about how we thought about apps,
and how we decided to move forward with the ones that we are developing now.
I saw in a number of the interest points in doing this webinar that folks were interested in
the idea of how do we determine that we are going to develop an a
and what resources do we need to be able to develop one and successfully distribute it?
So when we were thinking of a new app, the first thing that we did
was get input from our potential audiences. And we are really as I said,
focusing on the nonprofit sector, so we heard a lot from nonprofits that they had existing systems
that they needed just a little bit more functionality out of, or that they needed to integrate
with other systems. And so the two apps that we've been working on
and have delivered one of them, CRM to Quickbooks link.
On the App it Up page you can find that. And StoryWell which will be coming shortly
which is an integration with an existing website to the site content.
We define the value proposition to nonprofits with respect to them, you will be able to do this
and tested that proposition to determine if the value really was what we expected it to be
for them. We had to identify partners. When you develop an application
whether it is big or small, you really have to think about distribution, marketing,
how you are going to provide ongoing support, and then who are your pilots
or early adopters going to be? Who can talk about the app and let others know about them?
We needed to determine the fiscal sustainability of an app if applicable.
Sometimes apps are developed and put out there, and people tend to use them freely,
and there is not an expectation of ongoing support or ongoing development.
In other cases there is a need for ongoing support and development,
so how do you fund that? Is there a funder that is going to provide that funding?
Do you need to charge a fee for that type of thing?
And then you need to define the support offer. Do you just provide the app as is?
Is there a phone number that somebody can call? Is there an e-mail address?
Is there a web form? Is there a community of development professionals
that can help provide support?
And last but not least was determining the licensing model.
Again, is this a free open source app? Is it something that's actually a proprietary a
that you are going to provide for free? Is the app licensing based on the organization,
or is it based on individual users?
So I want to talk a little bit about the distribution model. There really are two primary models
that are available. One is Request & Deliver, and the other is Request & Download.
So in the first Request & Deliver, you have an organization or an individual
who requests the app, and then there is some process that you as the source
for the app goes through to fulfill that request, and it is delivered.
The other is to Request & Download which is a much more popular method
of distribution methods at this point in time, but either method can work.
It really depends on how much control or how many pieces or parts
might be included in the app.
And thinking about the licensing model, there are a few points I want to go over.
One is the end user licensing agreement. Other folks may call these EULA's.
That is kind of the common term in the software development world. But this is a legal document,
and often when you are installing an app whether it be on your phone,
on your computer or other device, it is that long legalese document that you just go ahead
and click the "I accept" without reading it usually. But it really is very important
that you think about what that end user license agreement says.
I don't believe that it is a common thing, but it is a common enough thing
that folks feel that it is necessary to have a really good tight end user licensing agreement
for any app that you are distributing. You can say things such as I am not responsible
for anything that you do with this app. If you use it is at your own risk.
And you can move to the other extreme and provide a service level agreement
within the licensing agreement.
Also in the licensing model as I mentioned earlier, you have to think about if the license is granted
to an organization or to an individual. And where this comes into play is if you have individuals
who are downloading apps for use for their organization, does the data that they gather
with that app if it collects data, does that belong to the organization
or does that belong to the individual?
Also the authentication that is used for the app if there is one.
Sometimes it is only an e-mail address that is the registered user of the app.
In that case it is generally an individual. However, if there is a fee being charged
for the app, again the ownership of that license needs to be identified
either with the organization or the individual.
And last, but certainly not least is if there is going to be licensing and it is based on users,
then you have to determine if the licensing is for named users,
meaning it is for each user that may use it, or concurrent users,
the number of users who could be using it at any given moment.
And I am happy to answer questions along the way if there is anything that comes u
that seems relevant. Or after, I believe that we have a forum set u
to ask and answer questions.
In talking about the payment model I want to preface it with, not all apps are for a fee;
many apps are available for free. And many apps in the commercial world
are available to nonprofits, libraries, or educational organizations at a discounted price.
It is always worth asking if you are looking at an app and thinking that it fits your needs
but it looks a little spendy, talk to the supplier of the app to determine if there is a discount.
If you are developing the app and distributing it however, and you are going to charge a fee
for it, you have to determine how you are going to collect that fee.
And it goes back somewhat to the distribution model. If you are going to invoice
the organization, or there is going to be a limited number of folks that you are going to be
distributing the application to, you may want to set up an invoice.
You may want to set up an account receivable in your accounting system
and collect payment using bills. This may happen if your primary audience for your a
are people that you already know or people that are already paying for use of some sort.
Prepay would be an example of someone requesting an app, providing payment up front,
and then you making the app available to them either for download or by delivering it to them.
And then certainly there are the online payment options. Online payment options
entail a lot of moving pieces. And most of you are probably aware to some extent
or have used online shopping carts in your daily lives whether personal or working,
and the online payment options really are pretty numerous. I would highly recommend however,
if you are not familiar with the limitations of a shopping cart on your website
to go with a technology professional who is very familiar with online shopping carts.
There are also many prepackaged options that are available through organizations
whether it be your bank, several online options that are available.
You have your operate.net. You have IAPP. You have PayPal, and many, many more.
You may also decide that you don't want to deal with the online payment options at all.
And there are organizations that will take on the full responsibility of creating a web form
and collecting payments, and then passing that payment on to you. So that is yet another option.
And you absolutely need to think about support on an ongoing basis.
And this is what actually is, at least from my experience one of the biggest barriers
to really skilled and talented developers providing apps to other organizations
with the expectation that there will be support. And you have to figure out
the financial sustainability of providing that support, and what level you should provide.
So in thinking about a support model, one option is to think about a help desk.
Is there a phone number that people can call or e-mail that will answer questions or help them
through issues if they have any issues with the app? For many apps the help desk
is by e-mail only or is supported by a community of developers
that just answer each other's questions as they are working through continuing
to develop an app. In other cases there is an actual phone number for a company.
These are usually apps that have a fee, and many times that fee even though it is small
is helping to support that help desk.
There are initial configuration services that you may want to offer depending on the app.
For example in our CRM to QuickBooks link app, we offer some initial configuration services
for that that are included in the licensing fee so that we ensure that people
get the app set up correctly in the beginning.
Extended professional services may be applicable; they may not.
If the app is configured and set to go there is really not any extensibility to the app,
so it does not need or have the capability of being extended to have additional features
or functionality, you may not need to provide additional professional services.
However, if it may be extended, changed, customized, etc., you may want to consider
offering professional services, or partnering with an organization
who may offer those professional services.
A better option for support is a customer forum. For example, if you buy Microsoft Office,
you know that there is a customer forum for Microsoft office in addition to their support
that they offer internally, so that people can answer each other's questions.
Do you provide that? What are the options for providing it? Do you have the resources
to provide that internally? There are also some external tools that you may use
to set up customer forums so that you can provide support in that way.
And last but not least in the support model what I wanted to talk about is the update distribution.
This is only applicable if you continue to develop the app. For example, if Facebook
were to just have developed Facebook version 1 sent it out there and left it,
this would not be a problem. However, as they continue to update their app,
they need to figure out how to distribute that update. Do you distribute it automatically?
Do you give people the option to take the new update?
Do you over time require people to take the update within a certain period of time?
Do people have the option to select certain features that they want to update,
and other features that they don't?
And that was just in the planning. And of course you get the fun part of designing and developing
the app, at least from a technologist's standpoint this is the fun part. You have the planning.
Yes, there is more planning. And the planning includes deciding what features
you are actually going to include in the app. You want to talk about the application framework,
what platform, what tools and languages you are going to use etc.
What is available on a Windows PC versus a Mac? What is available on a mobile device
versus A Mac or a PC? What features do you want?
Do you want to be able to send notifications? Do you want to gather data
and send it back to another system? So that type of thing. Where are you going to store your data?
Is that going to be in a hosted platform? Is it going to be on an on premise server
Then you get to develop the app. And of course there are still some talented folks out there
that can develop an app. And you want to test it. And it is best to test it without the developers
testing it. I'm sure if I could hear folks I'd hear a few chuckles,
but testing should be done by less techie folks than developers,
so that they can break it and provide feedback about the usability.
There is always a revision step in the development process
where you are making changes based on your testing feedback.
And then of course you have documentation. And documentation can be at different levels.
At one level it can be for the user, how to use the app. Another level may be for installation
and configuration. And yet another level may be for the technical structure.
And again, depending on how you are going to distribute and license the app,
you may need more or less of any of those types of documentation.
The last thing I want to talk about is piloting your app. Piloting an app I believe is absolutely integral
to a successful launch of an app. You need to know that it works.
You need to know that it works with an organization that is not your organization
if you are the developer. A pilot will generally include installing and configuring the app,
training users, again, non-techie users, testing the app with live data or live communications.
Supporting the results, did it work? Did it not work?
Was there something that the user thought they could do that they couldn't do?
Was it not intuitive? That type of thing.
And again, after the pilot there is generally a revision to the app based on the feedback,
and revision to documentation. That is updated with the app.
And we are at the end of my slides.
Stephanie: Yes, thank you so much Shawn. That was wonderful. Thank you for sharing all
of your experiences in creating apps. There is definitely a lot more involved
than I was even aware of. So thank you for that.
We do have some time now for questions, and we have gotten a few of those
already submitted. And go ahead and still ask those in the chat.
And to start with we've got — someone asked if all the apps were free.
And I think some of them are definitely ones you have to pay for. Some of them are ones
that vendors offer when you have their products. But there were some that were free.
But someone else also wanted the list of library apps. So what I will definitely do
with the follow-up blog post that I will put on TechSoup for libraries
with a list of all those library apps. And I will show you which ones are free,
and which ones there are a charge for.
And we also were asked how many organizations we are serving.
And Ariel, I don't know if you know that off hand?
Ariel: I think we had around 230 responses to our surveys, or slightly more or slightly less.
And all of the details are in the blog post that I can post a link to in the chat
that has the whole details of the survey results.
Stephanie: Okay, wonderful, thank you. And Beth asked us what is the difference
between a plug-in and a widget? So who wants to answer that one?
Ariel: I may give the wrong answer, but from my perspective they are basically the same thing.
There may be more technical uses of them that differentiate between them,
but they are basically the same thing. They are just something that you can add on
to an existing tool to make it better and customize it.
Stephanie: Okay, great, thank you. And Randy asked if anyone knew anything about Boopsie
for libraries. I don't know about that, does anyone else? We can definitely look into it.
Ariel: Boopsie is an app development company I believe, that has actually been
as far as I know the basis for a number of particular library apps.
But beyond the fact that libraries have used Boopsie to develop their library apps,
I don't know that much about it.
Stephanie: Okay, wonderful, great. Well, we will definitely look into that as another tool.
And again, if any of you have experience with that, feel free to add that in the chat
and let us know if you have used it before.
And then Elaine asked, any advice for those of us contemplating the use of third-party software
for building a simple app? Shawn, what do you think? Do you have any advice?
Shawn: Using third-party software to build an app?
Stephanie: Right.
Shawn: I probably need to know what third-party software.
There are many different options that are available and depending on the option
that is selected it could be a really good fit with the system that they have,
or it could not play well with the system that they have. And so it is worth looking into
what development tools they would be using and how well those play with their existing system
or the system they want to plug into.
Stephanie: Okay, great. How about video editing apps?
Does anyone have any information on those? Any you would recommend?
I don't think I've used any video editing apps.
Ariel: I would say that there are a lot of video editing apps that are out there.
Again, depending on the internal IT expertise and systems of the user,
and what they are using whether it is Mac or PC will help to determine the results down,
and what tools are appropriate for you. And also, I would throw out there that there are
video editing apps that are available through TechSoup Stock at a very, very low price
that are full business class applications that may be useful to.
Stephanie: Great, thank you. And someone added to our discussion about the widgets
and the add-ons, and DJ said he thinks of widgets as something you can embed
on a webpage, and add-ons are something you would add on to a program.
That is kind of an interesting distinction there, maybe like adding on to a web browser.
Ariel: Yeah, and actually Anna one of our fellow TechSoupers and App it Uppers
added a similar note that plug-ins are used by the end user, and widgets are for a website.
So widgets can be seen by anyone who visits the website. So thank you for for clarifying.
Stephanie: Okay. And Shawn, what do you use for development?
Shawn: I actually use a variety of tools. I will use the Visual Studio product from Microsoft
to do .NET or Windows based programming. I will also use some open source tools such as PH
or MySQL to do some cross-platform development.
There are a variety of tools that are available.
Stephanie: Wonderful, thank you. Any experience with with biz apps for mobile phone app building?
Shawn: Was that question to me?
Stephanie: Sure.
Shawn: With mobile phone apps, one of the cool things that has kind of developed
over the last few years and others might be able to chime in on this [indistinct],
is that the ability to develop for the mobile platform has become much, much easier.
So if you go into pretty much any kind of interactive development environment tool
whether it be Visual Studio or other tools that are out there, you have the ability to develo
for the mobile device within the same tools that you are developing apps for full PCs
or larger devices. I think the tricky thing there is just to remember how much real estate you have
on the phone, especially smaller phones, depending on your audience,
and the capability of the enormous range of quality of phone technology
needs to be taken into account.
Stephanie: Sure, definitely. And any free survey apps that either of you have used?
Shawn: I have primarily used Survey Monkey. And they do have nonprofit pricing
that is available. I've not used one that is completely free.
Stephanie: Okay, great. And I think that is about all of our questions.
Missy asked, what was the mobile phone app, [BizMap]?
I'm not sure. Oh, [BizApp] maybe?
Shawn: I am not certain, sorry.
Stephanie: Okay. Well, thank you all. And definitely I learned a lot,
and definitely appreciate the apps that I use more now as well knowing all of them,
everything that goes into developing them and sustaining them.
So thank you all very much for sharing.
And we would love to continue this discussion as well. So if you do have additional questions
you can post them in our community forum. If you just go to bit.ly App it Up forum,
you will see that there is one developed for you already that you can ask your question
and we can get back to you on that.
We also have an evaluation form for this webinar if you could take it, so that we can improve
how we offer webinars to you. That would be appreciated as well.
And Kyla has shared that out in the chat box as well.
So thank you so much to both of our speakers for letting us know about what is out there,
and what we can do to develop new apps ourselves as well,
or maybe to be cautioned about everything that is needed
to be able to make that happen successfully.
We do want to thank our webinar sponsor, Citrix Online for contributing their software
for this program, GoToWebinar. And again, thank you all for attending.
And thank you to our speakers. Please keep up with our App it Up! project,
and we will be sharing more information as we learn more from all of you. Thank you.
Ariel: And a big thank you to Microsoft as well for their support of the App it Up! project.
Stephanie: Yes, thank you.
[Silence]
And you will receive a recording, and archive of this webinar as well.