after two weeks

I have officially been working with HPP for almost two weeks now.  Besides becoming formally oriented with the organization, I have spearheaded a couple of interesting projects.  My host organization, formally titled Homeless Prenatal Program although everyone calls it HPP, is made up many smaller departments: Community Health Worker Training, Wellness Program, Substance Abuse, Childcare Center and the Technology Center.  I am working in the technology center as a tech specialist.  I have also been assigned to being the volunteer coordinator.  At this moment there is nothing to formally monitor and organize volunteers. 

Everyone in the organization is super friendly; I have even dined out with a couple of the staff members.  I’m attributing this smooth adjustment to my boss because she has made a substantial effort to ensure that everyone in the organization knows who I am and what my role will be at HPP.  After only two weeks, I already feel like I belong here, staff members go out of their way to say hello to me!    

As for my projects, I currently have three different tangents for my own work in addition to the training help and website updates that I supply in the lab.  First, I am looking at creating an electronic volunteer management system, that will either be online or through Access.  This database will allow HPP to organize their volunteers more effectively.  My other project is to create some sort of online portal through some CMS (maybe Drupal, but I am also exploring others) specifically for case managers.  We have a website called helping-sf that will be used as a starting point for some organization and content, but I am just beginning the design process.  If anyone has any suggestions for training, either online or otherwise, I would love to hear about them.  Ideally, HPP would like to be able to expand this resource to the entire San Francisco community if everything goes well in the testing phase.  Lastly, I am going to try to strengthen the connections between the numerous community technology centers and vocational services in SF.  I am looking into working with the SF WiFi project and other local community technology groups. 

Mostly, San Francisco is amazing and there are many cheap and free events all over the city.  Check out: funcheapSF for more!

I must go.  I have to help with a tech class in Spanish.  Oh how I wish I could speak Spanish fluently!  I suppose that I am working on it.      

Comment from Rebecca White on September 21, 2006 - 6:20pm

Hey, I spent a few days last week looking at CMSes: drupal (and CivicSpace, which is drupal with a bunch of modules), e107, Joomla, xoops. I might post a little on my research & observations, but it's something I like talking about so feel free to email/IM/phone.

Comment from Richard T. Anderson on September 22, 2006 - 1:41pm

Sounds like you are doing some interesting things. Wish I knew more about building websites and speaking Spanish, then I could be of help.

I feel like I belong where I'm at too. Isn't that a great feeling?

Peace,

Rich

Comment from cheryl jerozal on September 22, 2006 - 8:54pm

but it looks like it could be useful: http://idealware.org/articles/joomla_drupal_plone.php