[Peter Gulka]

On Monday morning, everyone gathered in an assembly hall to hear Marc Chardon the new CEO of Blackbaud speak.

I saw Marc speak at the Vancouver BB conference in June, and was very impressed by his demeanor, and the atmosphere of enthusiasm he seemed to have. He seemed genuinely excited about teh work WE do, not just selling us a product.

This session only reinforced that belief. When a guy quotes his grandmother, there is something to him.

"They don't build statues to people who leave well enough alone" -Marc's gramma

His session was prefaced by him saying that he would not pretend to be an expert in the non-profit sector after one year. He was a technologist who was now working with non-profits, and had 10 months of time to make some observations.

He has a view of technology that is very progressive. He sees what is coming down the pipe and understands that you can't stop the avalanche. Technology now makes everything happen in real-time. Everything. The implications of that are that things will be done BY us or TO us regarding information and communication via new technology. We can get on the bus or it'll take off without us.

How can we make every piece of data we collect work to improve the relationships that we have with our constitutents, whomever they may be? How can technology be used to foster a greater sense of community? The internet and the community it can build must be taken advantage of by non-profits.

That's most of what I got notes on. My impressions of the talk were just a great sense of relief. It felt like a weight had been lifted from me. I go into dealings with BB with my teeth gritted to a certain degree. My attitude has changed 100%. I beleive wholeheartedly that Marc Chardon wants to lead the company into a client-focused direction. It wasn't just words either. Some of the things like the Customer Input sessions at the conference, Usability testing engineers being hired, and several other things are showing a committment to the clients and users that I have not seen.

I am excited to be a client of Blackbaud, and excited at how the team will be helping my organization achieve its goals better than we thought we could.