That’s what team OSMOS has been working on for a while now.

We have done a huge amount of ground work, including testing at client end and so on for the past 8 months of our life. We have made a thousand false starts and promises to launch and gone back to the drawing board time and again to make things better.

We’re not really there as yet. Our features and functions still need to scale up on various fronts.

However, we realize that perfection is a journey, and not a destination. With this funda, we plan to now release http://recnut.com, a FREEMIUM software for recruitment agencies to manage their process pipelines better.

Maybe next week, maybe around 1st of April

Not really later than that.

Here’s to wishing us luck.

PhP, MySQL, Ajax –> Mandatory

Apache, Linux –> Highly Desirable.

Send us mail on osmos@osmos.net if you suit the above profile

We actually discovered the power of social media apps when we set up a turnkey solution for a client, with a huge amount of Web 2.0 enabled sofware and content, including RSS feeds, blogs, wikis and Ajax applications as intranet applications, for various clients, with capabilities for these apps allow users to interact with various corporate legacy data blocks in an innovative and absolutely hassle free way.

Like an employee did with an intranet that we’re doing for the company he works for … he simply shook up some databases, created a small app out of a simple db-app-builer app we’d given him, and created an outstanding RSS feed system of outstanding payments… and fed them into personal pages of all his concerned colleagues. Which meant that every morning, not a huge load was taken away from the people who used to generate MIS reports and mail them out every morning, but also that employees got to see information that suddenly started making sense to them on an Intranet.

Compare this to a “legacy” intranet, where certain bored heads of certain departments keep posting forms, sundry news blocks and so on ?

We firmly believe that a FaceBook makes sense for organizations.

Setting up an interaction platform, that not only provides for various closed and open loop communications, but also for capabilities for the more enterprising of the lot to add values in the form of report-views, becomes suddenly all too feasible.

What better way to present daily activities calendar than the “notification” system that FB has ? What better way to track user activities and timelines than incorporating a multi-media (phone, web, SMS, etc) utlity, into an ecosystem, that does a mini Twitter? What better way to monitor a CRM process, than RSS feeds on activities ?

Our efforts at OSMOS aim to provide for an application like this to corporates. An application that goes beyond making an intranet a “nice to have” capability, to a “must have” function.

Easily measurable, monitorable and accountible …

And when employees get to it, and tech challenges are taken away by providing them with RAD tools, watch this intranet come to life, with news, views and other goodies that add value to the biz. All the time.

Over the years, we have observed that larger NGOs get away with larger slices of the “donations” pie, for the simple reason that they are more visible, can communicate better, and can present themselves in a more appealing manner designed to connect. The larger NGOs also have access to a larger skill set of professionals on various fronts, thereby allowing them to steal a march over the lesser, not so equipped and grass root NGOs.

empowerNGO.com wishes to level the playing ground by taking to NGOs a range of services at extremely affordable prices.

Some of the services that empowerNGO.com wishes to take to NGOs include:

1. Enabling NGOs with Websites, domain names, shopping cart, etc at Rs. 2500 per annum
2. Enabling NGOs with a range of visibility and reach services including Newsletters and Brochures, Photo and Video services, Professionally designed Project Reports and so on
3. Other than this, empowerNGO.com will also provide a range of process oriented services, including documentation, due diligence, conformance and other related services to make every NGO professionally sharper and more credible.

empowerNGO.com is also gearing up in the short run, to publish an eNewsletter that will hit CSR depts. of various companies, and high resource bodies like the Rotary, Lions, etc. The aim of this eNewsletter would be to present to all these bodies, works that the NGO is doing, along with contact details to do joint projects, matching grants and so on.

empowerNGO.com also provides a range of online networking facilities to its audiences, in the form of blogs, photogalleries, forums and so on. Matter from here will be used hugely to project these NGOs to various audiences.

Within this year, empowerNGO.com will surely reach  out to at least 5000 NGOs, SHGs, and other bodies with various products and services that will help them get access to larger resources, reach out to wider audiences, and thereby help service audiences better.

Business scenario:

1> Head office in New Delhi. 2> Services over 200 self-help groups (SHGs) across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and other states.

3> Focused on providing livelihood and sustenance to handicraft makers and other artisans in villages.

4> Is engaged in various fund-raising activities for its SHGs, to provide loans for material procurement, welfare, education, and sustaining the arts.

5> Is royally fleeced by an army of agents who buy the products at dirt cheap rates, and sell handicrafts at margins greater than a whopping 1000 per cent to markets abroad, and at 500 per cent plus margins to local markets.

6> Has no way ahead to present itself to the world to showcase its services, and provide a forum for benevolent people from the world to contribute funds and other resources for its causes.

Business requirements (the vision):

1> Must present itself to the world as an entity engaged in doing excellent work for the community.

2> Needs to do away with middlemen who loot artisans and enable direct artisan-buyer links to ensure that the artisans get the maximum benefit.

3> Requires a forum to collect monies from benevolent entities in the local and global arena.

4> Should connect to corporate bodies to ensure bulk purchase of its products for gifting during festive seasons, etc.

The Proposed Solution:

A website with the following features:

1> Structured information showcasing its strength, capabilities, outreach, support systems, and so on with transparency

2> Dynamic content areas, where the latest activities keep getting updated

3> Photo-gallery to showcase activities, etc

4> Forum for people to discuss ideas, concepts, interact with the NGO and with each other

5> A shopping cart that allows subscribed entities to directly upload product details and sell them online, without the need for middlemen

6> Interfaces to collect funds and other resources from generous entities7

> An e-newsletter to be sent at regular intervals to various opt-in entities

Business scenario post website:

1> Middlemen eliminated. Products have been marked up in terms of prices, and artisans get a greater price per product.

2> The NGO has used the surpluses generated by eliminating the middlemen to setup a primary school and a medical clinic at three villages.

3> Due to its newsletter, which is forwarded to several people, the NGO has also managed to connect to other like-minded bodies abroad, and very shortly, a test run is due to start which would enable villages with bio-gas and solar power.

4> NGOs have also stepped forward to explore options for typical bulk-purchase products that can be sold by them in markets abroad to raise funds for various causes.

Getting creative with the business:

1> The first channel that the NGO setup with the Web, even before its sales channel, was a communication channel through its newsletter.

2> From scratch, it grew to over 30,000 email subscriptions within 5 months…

3> This channel, along with the website being regularly updated with information on projects, services and so on, established an image of ‘seriousness and transparency’ for the NGO. Its visibility, and consequently its well wishers, multiplied.

4> It was able to do away with middlemen and up-scale its product price, thereby ensuring not only that the artisans get more but also that the NGO itself became self-sustaining through the sale of products through the website. Being transparent about this process has also led to corporate social responsibility (CSR) units of organisations stepping in to consider various plans for working together with the NGO.

5> Publishing its accounting and revenue sharing system details online was a motivator for many people who shied away earlier, to directly come and purchase goods from the NGO.