Volunteer Development Work
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
You are doing great but don't do that for along time otherwise people will get used to your "volunteer" stuff especially in the field of development they will use you alot. I have done several volunteer works to develop websites for friends when i was in college and i also do my own stuff which doesn't pay also.
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
The other side..... You need to ensure that you pick the right organization if you are going to work for free. There needs to be someone that will appreciate what you do and deliver what you need (design guidelines, requirements etc). If you do not have this you will do a lot of work and then be stuck with complaints. Even worse, a lot of work done that will not be used. If you have appreciation for you time and a willingness to participate then it can be a pleasure. In my opinion it is always better to get some cash upfront to ensure that everybody is committed. This needs to be amount that is felt. A non profit may not be able to pay $ 5000 but they can pay $ 500 and it will feel the same to them as the $ 5000 to larger company. Make clear this is $ 5000 worth of work for $ 500 and you should be fine, with benefits for all. Remember, if they are not willing to pay one cent then in general your work and time is worth less than one cent to them.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein
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If you are in New England, several of my cow-orkers volunteer here. "GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where technology professionals – including designers, developers and database administrators as well as marketers and web strategists – donate their time and unique talents to provide software solutions for local charities and other non-profit organizations. " http://newenglandgivecamp.org/about/[^]
Send lawyers, guns and money
Cow-Orker? Is that some variety of super-Ork, or a particularly vicious Cow? Or an Ork riding to Gondor on the back of a cow? :-D
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
In 2007 I retired and moved to the small coastal town of Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK. After almost 40 years of working with computers I found it difficult to let go and so volunteered my skills. It has been a great way of becoming part of the community, but there is a warning. A lot of retired people who volunteer find that quite quickly they have to back-off. It is very easy to sell your services for nothing. I have helped the town build up its tourism's IT infrastructure, web sites, webcams, public touchscreens, event screens etc. It has now got to the point where it's almost a full time job so I want to back-off. The catch-22 is that, I'm the only one who knows how all this was put together (lots of bespoke code). It would be very difficult for another company to take it over, they almost certainly would want to replace it and the cost would be prohibitive and difficult for the town to fund. The town council insists on paying me a small retainer but this just means I am now contracted whereas I want to be retired. The idea was that, on retirement, I would spend a couple of years practising like mad on my Fender Strat so that I would be as good as Clapton, however after 40 years it's difficult not to get drawn to the computer keyboard rather than the guitar. Pathetic I know. So, if there's anyone near Lyme Regis who would like to share the load, let me know. There might even be some money in it.
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
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The other side..... You need to ensure that you pick the right organization if you are going to work for free. There needs to be someone that will appreciate what you do and deliver what you need (design guidelines, requirements etc). If you do not have this you will do a lot of work and then be stuck with complaints. Even worse, a lot of work done that will not be used. If you have appreciation for you time and a willingness to participate then it can be a pleasure. In my opinion it is always better to get some cash upfront to ensure that everybody is committed. This needs to be amount that is felt. A non profit may not be able to pay $ 5000 but they can pay $ 500 and it will feel the same to them as the $ 5000 to larger company. Make clear this is $ 5000 worth of work for $ 500 and you should be fine, with benefits for all. Remember, if they are not willing to pay one cent then in general your work and time is worth less than one cent to them.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein
That's understandable. In this case, the site is already mostly put together. The design is complete, most of the pages exist. They just need a few enhancements added. They did offer to pay, but given that there isn't much work involved, I told them not to worry about it. And I'm in contact throughout each day with one of the owners, very clear communication on what needs to happen. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
Have you looked at http://www.sparked.com/about/micro[^]
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Have you looked at http://www.sparked.com/about/micro[^]
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No, I haven't seen that before. Thanks for the link!
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
Sure thing! I was hoping to help too, but as my ability to code is lacking I just started doing Habitat. :laugh:
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
I've done some volunteer website work for different non-profits around the US and its been a blast. I normally go through http://www.npower.org/[^] to find different non-profits. It's a wonderful site to help non-profits find IT people to help them.
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
My new neighbor got a habitat for humanity home. They drive a new Mercedes.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch
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I've done some volunteer website work for different non-profits around the US and its been a blast. I normally go through http://www.npower.org/[^] to find different non-profits. It's a wonderful site to help non-profits find IT people to help them.
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Cow-Orker? Is that some variety of super-Ork, or a particularly vicious Cow? Or an Ork riding to Gondor on the back of a cow? :-D
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
Ork riding to Gondor on the back of a cow?
Nay, nay. Saruman's minions are orCs. In this case, Ork is a verb. I leave finding the definition as an exercise.
Send lawyers, guns and money
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
Matt U. wrote:
Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff.
Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)Yup. In fact, my major project outside of work is a system that keeps track of a farm. The cool thing about it is that they are getting a first-rate software product that they never could afford otherwise and I enjoy making that happen. We get our farm share in exchange for it. If it were a commercial deal I could probably get $20 grand for the effort but it's just not about money, I just enjoy doing it. :)
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Cow-Orker? Is that some variety of super-Ork, or a particularly vicious Cow? Or an Ork riding to Gondor on the back of a cow? :-D
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When I was living in California I decided I was going to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity to do electrical work, as in design and wire the houses for free (I'm an Electrical Engineer). I set out to figure out what I had to do to obtain an electrician's license in the state. Low and behold, they make it VERY difficult to get licensed and there's no exceptions for engineers, which doesn't make sense to me (same amount of time for an engineer to get licensed as for someone who has NO experience at all). You essentially have to be in an apprenticeship for some ridiculous amount of time (7 years if I remember correctly). So... I ended up not doing it. Don't understand the crazy regulations some states have. It almost sounds like they're controlled by a union.
Albert Holguin wrote:
which doesn't make sense to me
At least when I was in college the courses necessary to get an electrical engineering degree did nothing at all to prepare one to wire a house much less something like a restaurant or office correctly. Didn't actually prepare one to do much at all in the real world for that matter. And although good intentions are admirable they will not prevent a house fire caused by incorrectly installing an electrical system. In comparison I am rather certain as well that I would not want a civil engineer building a house and very definitely wouldn't want them building a bridge if their only experience was a degree from a university. Doesn't matter what university either. FYI Texas requires "Engineers" to pass a test and to have some real world experience as well before they can use that term.
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Albert Holguin wrote:
which doesn't make sense to me
At least when I was in college the courses necessary to get an electrical engineering degree did nothing at all to prepare one to wire a house much less something like a restaurant or office correctly. Didn't actually prepare one to do much at all in the real world for that matter. And although good intentions are admirable they will not prevent a house fire caused by incorrectly installing an electrical system. In comparison I am rather certain as well that I would not want a civil engineer building a house and very definitely wouldn't want them building a bridge if their only experience was a degree from a university. Doesn't matter what university either. FYI Texas requires "Engineers" to pass a test and to have some real world experience as well before they can use that term.
Electrical engineering college material makes sure you understand electricity, at least it should, if it didn't, you should ask for a refund. I do agree it won't teach you everything about wiring a house, it should allow you to quickly learn what you need to if you decided to get into that line of work. There really isn't much to wiring a house really... the seven year apprenticeship was set up for getting an 18 year old kid fresh out of high school and getting him trained to be an electrician, not for an electrical engineer to learn the ins/outs of wiring a house.
jschell wrote:
FYI Texas requires "Engineers" to pass a test and to have some real world experience as well before they can use that term.
This is most states... I'm not against testing, but to categorize an electrical engineer in the same way as you would someone fresh out of high school is pretty extreme (reeks of union/political moves).
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
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Have any of you ever done volunteer development work? If so, was it for a large organization, perhaps nationwide? Or something smaller, like a local cause? Through my girlfriend's mother, I got in contact with a local non-profit group. Their Web site was horribly put together by some guy, a slackjob. Luckily it isn't very complicated and we could keep the design and just rework the small amount of server-side stuff. Anyhow, have any of you ever done something like that? I've been looking for places to volunteer my skills for a long time. I just didn't find it until now. Just curious. :)
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
Matt - I'm also in Middle Tennessee (Murfreesboro). There's plenty of non-profits around here - and in Nashville - with old, dilapidated websites that would love someone to come in and refresh/update/etc. their websites (I'm working with a few now). Just be careful how you approach it - one of my first gigs I was...less than tactful. I approached the office manager with "Your website is old and outdated, and uses technology that's ancient and was apparently written by someone who didn't understand web technologies. It needs to be updated." Guess who had built it... Lesson learned. Now it's "I want to build my portfolio and help you all out by volunteering. How can I help?"