Beaconfire Consulting

The future is here, and its name is Wave. Not really… but the much anticipated Google Wave has arrived in “preview” mode. When...

For as long as I can remember, our PM team has debated internally the value of the PMP certification for project managers. For many big corporations and the government, it is a key qualification for project managers. As a comparatively small company, this is not a prerequisite for our PMs...

Testing a Web site is a pretty big, and not often inexpensive, task. Cara already posted about some inexpensive tools for user-testing wireframes. But for your design, there’s an opportunity to go even lower-budget than that. ...

We hear it all the time. “Yeah, there’s an app for that.” It seems that, for every task you want to do, there’s a digital application that goes along with it, from organizing your recipes to promoting world peace. If you...

Much has changed since humanity acknowledged the word knowledge and started to classify the various subject matters into categories and taxonomies of learned disciplines. The definition of knowledge is outside the scope of this article because of simple reasons...

The Gift: Before Problem: The holidays are coming up again, and once again you waited too long to buy your gifts. You can’t find the items in stores, and when you find them online they won’t ship in time. They don’t even offer an e-card that nicely displays the gift you purchased. The ...

We all know that testing your wireframes to make sure your priority audiences can complete key tasks on your website-in-progress is a good idea – but is there an inexpensive way to do it? ...

Periodically, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors...

The holiday season is almost upon us, and that means (apart from family time, good cheer, and lots of food) that you’ll probably be asking your supporters for money. And so will everyone else. Holiday fundraising is a fine balancing act. ...

I love analytics. I love diving into the data, looking at the numbers and finding new and actionable insights. But there is one thing about analytics I don’t love – monthly dashboard reports. Yo...

… You really won’t want to miss THIS. Remember back in August when we asked for your help to get our panel ideas accepted to South by Southwest Interactive? Well, this last week we have been dying to share really exciting news with you, but have been sworn to secrecy .. til NOW! Th...

The economy is bad. Donations are down, and you’re under pressure to bring them back up. What would you do if someone offered your organization $10,000 a month for online advertising? You’d snap it up, right? And spend a few hours a month managing it? Or...

Myth #1: Monthly breast self-exams save lives Most of us think that regular breast self-exams are a no-brainer, but the evidence actually shows that breast self-exam does not save lives or detect breast cancer at an earlier stage...

Today, I had the honor of speaking on a great panel sponsored by Google and the Ad Council along with Jane Kirchner from American Farmland Trust, Andrew Marshall fromthe Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ) and Carley Graham Garcia from Google...