Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Management Software?

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

Norman —

I use Dropbox for a variety of things, and it works fine, as far as it goes.  
Basically, it stores stuff in the cloud such that you can get your stuff from 
anywhere, and also assign download and/or posting privileges to specific 
individuals (or, your entire community membership).

But Dropbox is not very interactive.  For that, you need something like a 
“wiki”, which allows for sharing, edition management, co-authoring, and dialog. 
 The one we’ve tried and liked (some of us, anyway) is a free service provided 
by PBWorks.  There are many other wiki services available, but the free 
versions are typically too crippled (too few participants, not enough storage) 
to be useful to cohos.  The paid versions will often be more than you need, and 
cost a couple of thousand a year for site access and maintenance.

Two really big things to watch out for:
     ? Will most of the community agree to learn and use and semi-technical web 
service?  And,
     ? How much web-based collaboration do you want?  I’ve found that providing 
broad write privileges to spreadsheets, text docs and databases usually results 
in document files that are either incomprehensible or ruined.

RPD

> On Nov 8, 2014, at 3:31 PM, Norman Gauss <normangauss [at] charter.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Phil Dowds:
> 
> Do you find file sharing software useful that would allow us to create our 
> own files and upload them to the web.  A service called Dropbox has been 
> suggested by one our members.  She works in a small wildlife rescue facility 
> which uses Dropbox.
> 
> Do you know of other file sharing packages we might look into?
> 
> Norman Gauss
> Oak Creek Commons Cohousing
> Paso Robles, CA
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cohousing-L [mailto:cohousing-l-bounces+normangauss=charter.net [at] 
> cohousing.org] On Behalf Of R Philip Dowds
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 2:30 PM
> To: Cohousing-L
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Management Software?
> 
> 
> The referenced site is interesting because it’s web-based, and its home page 
> nicely itemizes the various tasks and challenges that confront the management 
> of residential property.  But is it right for cohousing?  Most of us 
> cohousing communities are 20 to 40 units max, and we just don’t have that 
> many cars, packages, or “violations”.  Further, this looks like a program / 
> service made for a third party professional manager who, apart from his/her 
> contract or employment, has almost no real knowledge of the facility or its 
> residents.  At Cornerstone, we get the job done (more or less) with 
> Quickbooks and Excel spreadsheets maintained on a central server.  Plus, most 
> of us have an excellent view of that which we’re trying to manage just by 
> sitting in our home offices and looking out the window.  If we wanted to get 
> fancy, we could gin up something in Filemaker, but for the few number of 
> balls we have to juggle, it doesn’t seem worth the bother.
> 
> RPD
> 
>> On Nov 6, 2014, at 5:02 PM, Norman Gauss <normangauss [at] charter.net> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Are there any cohousing groups that utilize software to manage their 
>> affairs?  I learned of a software package available through the 
>> Davis-Stirling.com website:
>> http://www.smarthoa.com/?utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_term=I
>> mage+-
>> +http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smarthoa.com%2F&utm_content=normangauss%40charter.ne
>> +t&utm_
>> campaign=Panty+Thief
>> 
>> 
>> In addition, I have looked at several software packages specifically 
>> for property maintenance management.
>> 
>> If any one is familiar with any such software, I would appreciate 
>> being pointed to any you found useful.
>> 
>> Norm Gauss
>> Oak Creek Commons Cohousing
>> Paso Robles, CA
>> 
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