First of all, let's just say Farra's full name: Farra Trompeter (trom-peter, like the guy in front of the pearly gates). I love that name. I've taken to using it as an exclamation in all kinds of situations. For instance: "Well, I'll be Farra Trompetered." Seriously. I love it.

Secondly, Farra lives up to the fun of her name. I had a great time chatting with her about her session at the 2009 NTC, "Your Website as an Experience of Your Brand". I had so much fun, I had to edit out half of the conversation. What's left is a great introduction to a whole new way of thinking about your website -- and how to make it more effective. She may be even smarter than she is fun!

Farra also had a couple of San Francisco dining recommendations for NTC attendees. She suggests you check out:

• Minako - yummy organic sushi in the mission. Go say hi to Judy and her mom.
• Samovar - awesome chai and good treats.

Every Adwords user out there can agree on one thing: there's no one answer when it comes to Adwords. Making your campaign work for your organization can seem one part sweat, one part knowledge, one part pixie dust. But how do you make pixie dust, anyway?

The folks at Google have been more than generous in sharing that recipe with the NTEN crowd. Not only do they give NTEN members priority treatment for new Google Grants accounts, they've also shared their Adwords secrets in our Adwords webinar series. (Shhh. We're doing more in the spring!)

At the 2009 NTC, Google's own nonprofit Tinkerbell, Kristie Ferketich, will share her pixie dust formulas in her session, "Hey Buddy, Can You Spare $1: Effective Strategies to Maximize Google Grants". I got to talk to her about that session, some of the other Google goodness at the NTC, and her favorite San Francisco place, Dolores Park.

If there's one thing I've learned in my 6+ years at NTEN, it's that people love to hate their web sites. Perhaps that's why there are so many choices when it comes to CMS (oodles of which are rated in our CMS satisfaction survey). Ask anyone in the nonprofit technology community about Content Management Systems, and they're likely to mention one of the following:

• Drupal
• Joomla
• Plone

We like them because they're free. We love to hate them because there are so many twiddly bits to adjust. Thank goodness we have Laura Quinn, Executive Director at Idealware. She's going to sort out some of the differences between the three and make sense of it all, in terms even non-geeks can understand.  

I spoke with her about her session at the 2009 NTC, "Comparing Open Source CMSs: Joomla, Drupal, and Plone", and why CMS seems to be the area where open source has really taken off in the sector.

Here's a secret: Laura doesn't have warm fuzzy feelings about San Francisco.  Listen to the podcast to find out why, but know that we should all do our best to give her some positive feelings about the City by the Bay. Laura, I think you should start by having some old school San Francisco-style seafood at Tadich Grill. It's hard NOT to love SF after a bowl of their cioppino.  

If you love food like I do, you've probably heard of Iron Chef (or at least Iron Chef America). The premise is simple: Take two talented chefs, add one secret ingredient, then give them one hour to cook up at least 3 delicious courses.

Eve Simon, Creative Director at Beaconfire Consulting, is serving up a tasty session at the 2009 NTC based on the theme: "This is Iron Chef...Battle Nonprofit". One San Francisco nonprofit will serve as the secret ingredient for four creative teams, who will each come up with a web site design, email template, and social media plan. Their results will be presented to you at the NTC, where you'll have a chance to vote for the winning plan. 

You may also learn a thing or two about marketing best practices along the way!  Check out this talk I had with Eve about her session

This session is a must-see. Beaconfire has a "Gentleman in charge of the pranks," so you know their stuff is going to be fun. Listen to the end of the podcast!