Ever heard of Storify? Apparently some people have - it won a social media award at SXSW Interactive this year. Nevertheless, I hadn't really spent much time on the platform - so I decided to do a little research. Turns out, Storify is a platform that allows users to easily bring together related digital content such as social media, news articles, videos, and images by aggregating them in a timeline-type format. Seemingly one of its best benefits is that it makes it easy to share multiple types of media in one place, without having to wrestle with various embed codes. Once you’ve created a (free) account, making a new storyboard is as easy as selecting “Create Story.” You can then search by keyword for relevant media to incorporate into the Storify platform, right there in the Storify platform. Media options include Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Google, “breaking news” RSS, etc. Find stories that you like, then drag and drop them to where you’d like to feature them in your story. When you’re ready to share, just hit publish, and your storyboard goes live.

My colleague Kate recently integrated our site with Salesforce, the increasingly popular cloud-based CRM. Our site here is a Drupal 7 site; Drupal is the most popular CMS on the internet, so it's only natural to want to bring the two together. Here's some notes from Kate about how that worked out for us:

Drupal 7 and SalesForce work nicely together with node types. However, they don't work so well with webforms or contact forms. To integrate Salesforce with our site, I started out making a content type of Contact that sends user information to SalesForce. Keep in mind that you will need to properly configure permissions for a contact form to be effective.

The integration works by mapping Salesforce Objects with Drupal CCK fields. The easiest way to do this is by creating a new content type with some custom fields that you want to add into Salesforce. Here, Kate made content type called "Contact" which allows users to create new "Contact" nodes with a certain set of custom fields.

Adding a Google Map into a site is a useful way to show a geographic area in an accessible format. Google Map's interface provides a link to create a code to the left of the map in the browser and includes a link to a menu that allows the user to adjust how the embedded map will appear, its size, and includes the url to add the map to the site dependent on those variables.Google provides additional explanation of the embedding tool that can be found here.

The map is defined by a set of parameters in the URL that define the location of the map and basic display settings that can be manipulated to slightly adjust the map output within the page. The adjustable variables include the type of map displayed (normal, satellite, hybrid or terrain), the zoom level, and the latitude and longitude of the center of the map. A good overview of these variables can be found here. An example of the code can be found here:

Campaigns require a systematic approach that balances the emotion of an activist and the planning of a strategist. The following steps will help an organization begin to focus their energy into an actionable process that will enable winning campaigns. Answering the following questions will provide the organizer a path to implementing a successful campaign.

What are we fighting for?

The chosen campaign must be sufficiently broad as to appeal to as many people as possible. Here, listening is critical. Members of your organization will establish their expectations. The leaders of organizations are responsible for distilling those down to identify issues where there is a unique junction of energy and potential for organizational action through a campaign. The organizer must be realistic and have a good sense for the organization's best interests.