From our Guest Writer Jo Lee of CitizenSpeak:

I'm writing from AdvocacyDev III in Oakland, CA organized by Aspiration, an organization committed to building better tools for a better world. I run CitizenSpeak - a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. CitizenSpeak is also available as an open source module on the Druapl/CivicSpace platform.

This is the third annual convening of developers, organizers and activists interested in open source advocacy software for online organizing. The 2004 convening was characterized by a feeling of omnipotence and irrational exuberance. 2005 was characterized by a more sober approach. We learned that we needed to hunker down and focus on mundane aspects of industry development like scaling operations, professionalizing customer servise, and interoperability.

The word I would use to describe the mood today is realism. We've been in the business now for a number of years. We know the hard work that it takes to keep our services afloat. While it's great to get together and fantasize about new technology solutions, the goal now is to identify and address manageable projects to move this sector forward.

So, what's working?

• Evolution of content management systems
• The need to focus on organizational goals first and then technology
• Funders are slow to come on board but there is growing recognition of the importance of technology and the value of open source solutions
• The acknowledgement by developers of the importance of interoperability and emergence of mashups
• Growing mainstream adoption in open source applications

What's not working:

• Lack of standards
• Developers focus on feature development at the expense of support collateral such as training and implementation help. End users - the nonprofits we all are purporting to support are often lost.
  
• Lack of organizations participation in development processes to define real needs and improve usability
• The nascent stage of the 'middle later' of support that connects users to developers and solutions
• No easy way for organizations to share data
• Lack of end user understanding of total cost of ownsership, i.e. support, maintenance
• Education and training for end users
• General usability
• Project management skills and tools.
  

We're still here in part due to organizations like N-TEN and Aspiration that bring together people committed to this space and allowing us to learn from and support one another. Personally, I can say that if it hadn't been for these two organizations, CitizenSpeak would be long gone. I would never have found a network of people that have given me the support and information needed to sustain a free service.

But this also shows that we have a long way to go. There's a real problem when tons of great affordable tools aren't presented or available in a way that end users can find, navigate and understand.

Feel free to add to these lists. What do you see that's working and not working in the development of open source tools for activists, organizers, and campaigns?