I have shared the slides ( and video ) from my ignite session at CiviCon, which describes a case study of my use of CiviCRM for a synagogue, including invoicing and non-Western calendars. Everything is at my blog.

-Sarah

The past 8 days have been an amazing period for the CiviCRM community and core team members. Its been incredibly intense, extremely fulfilling and mind-blowing. A huge thank you and tip of the hat to the members of the community who participated in the event and came together from various parts of the world (asia, europe, north america) to push the project to greater heights, from a usability, documentation and localization viewpoint.

Thank you to Jimmy H, Erik B, Goran G, Matheiu L, Mathieu P for working on improving CiviCRM's localization and internationalization features. Thank you to Michael M, Xavier D, Adam H, Sarah G, Mari T, Alice G, Jack A, Josue G, Kyle J for burning the midnight oil to update, improve and extend the CiviCRM: A comprehensive guide. Thank you to OSI and our program officer: Janet Haven, Chintu Gudiya Foundation, Yellow Dog Foundation and Mitch Kapor Foundation for supporting our work and this sprint.

So a brief recap on some of the amazing events and highlights of the past 8 days:

It is midnight, we are busy finishing proof-reading the last chapters, after having been spoiled one more time with a scrumptious dinner cooked by an amazing Jill.

After 4 days, time to put some numbers on this sprint:

• 5 squirrels,
• 8 chipmunks,
• dozen of blue jays
• 2 coyotes, and
• 1 bernese mountain dog,

and

• 11 000 words, spread around a lot of new chapters both aiming the users of CiviCRM and the developers.

Everyone is continuing to produce an incredible amount of content for the book, plus rework and update areas that were showing some age. The new set of chapters for developers and people who want to extend CiviCRM is really fantastic. Everyone who has been wanting to extend CiviCRM, but didn't know where to start should be able to dive in. Everyone is increasing their knowledge of CiviCRM, getting ideas for new features and improving existing features.

It's 5 to midnight and we're just wrapping up. Mr Kurund says that I can't go to bed until I've written this post, so...

Participating in the second book sprint is just as fascinating as it was the first time around, but the dynamic is definitely different. Having a book in place already makes a big difference - there's no panicking that we'll end up with the sections half finished, and it is easier to cover components when a lot of the design decisions have already been made. Having already written sections on the components is especially helpful when covering new components.

It's 11pm in beautiful Truckee, CA, and the CiviCRM Book Sprint crew of twelve dedicated souls is still hard at work after a 10am start. We've come from across the US and around the globe to help update and improve the existing book, making it more useful for CiviCRM users, developers, implementers, and administrators.

Exactly one month from now, a team of CiviCRM developers, implementors and users will sprint to update 'Understanding CiviCRM: A Guide for Non-profits'. We've heard from lots of folks that to have this free online book as a learning resource is really important. And we're pretty excited about this sprint, especially given the amount we achieved last time.

There is lots to update and improve and we'd like your input to make the new version of the book as useful as possible to you. There are a few ways in which you can help now.

Lunch time of day two stands out as a high point of the book sprint. We'd spent the first day working relatively independently - brain-dumping the chapters about areas of CiviCRM that we knew the best and by Tuesday, it was clear the chapters making up our introductory section needed a re-think.

Last week I had the privilege of joining 10 other CiviCRM enthusiasts, along with a facilitator (Adam Hyde from FLOSS Manuals) for the CiviCRM Book Sprint. It was a fantastic experience on many different levels. More than anything else, it was great to meet in person and interact face-to-face with members of the core team and active members in the community—many of whom I’ve had forum-based contact with for several years.

In between (and often during) the writing, I had great opportunity to talk through how people have used and implemented CiviCRM, enriching my own understanding of the software and the possible capabilities it provides.

Both those discussions and the writing process itself made me appreciate even more how robust and flexible CiviCRM can be in meeting the diverse needs of non-profit organizations. As each chapter went through revisions, each reviewer brought their experience of how the software has been used, broadening and deepening the content and usefulness of the chapters.

The Book Sprint is over - and we met our goal: Zero to Book in 5 days.

Reflecting on the process, I am incredibly moved by the dedication and commitment which everyone on the sprint team brought to the process. People came together with a rich mix of experience and perspectives - and an amazing spirit of collaboration. It was a personal honor for me to be a member of this incredible team!

You can read the book online (in your browser) at:
>> http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm

and you can download a PDF version of the complete book by clicking the Make PDF icon in the upper left corner of that screen.

I am quite hopeful that this book will be a great resource both for current members of the CiviCRM community and for people who are evaluating whether CiviCRM might be a useful tool for their organizations. Please post your feedback and suggestions on the Documentation and Book section of the community forums.