Presented as one of the case studies at ElggCampBoston09 help August 15 at Harvard University.

1. Green Elgg and Bam!
Alex Tanchoco
Case Studies
Lions Clubs International District 20-R1
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Presented at Elgg Camp Boston 2009
Harvard University

2. Purpose
To share with you my experience in the
introduction of social media at two different
organizations, hoping that it may help you get
started.

3. Agenda
Personal Introduction
The Lions Clubs
Why Use Social Media?
Challenges
Why Elgg?
Pilot Server
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Social Media Pilot
Take Aways

4. Introduction
Alex Tanchoco
Manager of Advanced Technologies
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Previous Roles - Manager of Server Technologies, Team Leader for Server Implementations,
Database Systems Administration, Systems Programming (MSKCC, Merrill Lynch, City University of
New York)
Professional Memberships
Society for Information Management
IEEE
Lions Clubs District 20R1 - Technology Chairperson and Zone Chairperson
Rockland Centennial Lions Club - Immediate Past President
Social Network Presence
Elgg/LinkedIn/Twitter,
experimented with CollectiveX (renamed to Groupsite), CubeTree, Yammer.
I have no Facebook account; my teenage son pleaded not to friend him. ;-)

5. Lions Clubs International
What is a Lions Club?
World's Largest Service Club Organization
~1.3 Million Members Worldwide
~45,000 Clubs
>200 Countries (On the web lionsclubs.org)
The only major service organization where
100% of funds raised from the community actually
goes to community service projects.
Administration costs covered by membership
and specific fund raising events.
District 20-R1 - approximately 1200 members
Serving Putnam, Rockland and Westchester Counties
in New York State.

6. Why Use Social Media?
To improve collaboration within the district
Enhance the sense of community
Facilitate document sharing (flyers, newsletters)
Provide calendar for clubs and district events
Share photos/blogs from these events
Collaborate on Joint projects
Help promote Lionism

7. Challenges
Website Support - I'm the only resource
No budget!

8. Stumbling Upon Elgg
Google Search: Open Source Social Networking Software
Green Elgg ($Zero Dollar - High Value)
$0penSource Community
$0 - Learning Curve - familiar LAMP platform
$0 - Active Community
$0 - Community Support (trac)
$0 - Downloadable Community Plugins
$0 - Downloadable Community Widgets

9. Prototype Server Platform
Created Prototype server using Intel Atom processor
Normally Found on Netbooks.
Cool Processor - no FAN required
Power Consumption: ~20 Watts vs. ~65 watts or higher.

10. Pilot Server Platform
www.lionsclubs.me
~5 Watts running Marvell 1.2 Ghz processor
Using SDHC flash memory for storage
Runs Ubuntu 9.04
Boots with DHCP
SSH to login
Installed Apache, MySQL, PHP
Installed Elgg 1.5
Subsequently Installed WebMin
(web based Administration - webmin.com)

11. Other Hosting Options
Hosted Elgg Services (from Elgg.org website)
GoDaddy.com also provide Elgg hosting services

12. lionsclubs.me

13. Introduction to MSKCC
After experimenting with Elgg with the Lions Club
and being impressed with it, I then introduced it to
MSKCC.

14. Established in 1884, oldest and largest private cancer center
Mission: progressive control and cure of cancer through
programs of patient care, clinical research, and education
2008 Stats
~$2B Annual Revenues
Over 10,000 Employees
22,000 admissions, 466,000 outpatient visits
2008 Annual Report
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/shared/graphics/AR_2008/pdf/MSKCC08AR.pdf

15. Why Use Social Media at MSKCC?
Improve collaboration using social media
Enhance sense of community
Easy sharing of non-sensitive documents
Complements MS Sharepoint (for more sensitive docs)
Some Potential Use Cases:
Clinical Research
Graduate School/Post Docs
Staff Onboarding
Virtual Teams/Groups

16. MSKCC Challenges
Down Economy
Development Support - Zero Staff for Exploration
Zero Social Media Budget!

17. MSKCC Pilot
Formed a multi-disciplinary committee Nov 2008.
Elgg based pilot site in place November 2008.
Running on Suse Linux Enterprise Server
as a virtual machine on a Xen Server.
Zero Footprint Server (well sort of)
Initial pilot started with about a dozen people.

18. MSKCC Status
Finalizing Policy/Guidelines on the use of social media.
Staff education and awareness about social technology through
meetings/presentations.
Expanded Pilot - Currently about 300 pilot users.
Approximately 50 groups.
Submitted budget for a production system in 2010.
Anticipates 1500 active users in production.

19. Take Aways
Know Your Target Audience
Develop policy and guidelines
Identify Your Contributors/Leaders vs.
Consumers/Followers
Listen to users and implement feature requests and
problem fixes quickly.
Single Signon - not having to remember another set of
userid/password.
Elgg facilitated prototype/pilot at minimal cost.
Production class professional support may be hard to
come by (at least at the moment)

20. Summary
Elgg's light footprint and community support has enabled us to
experiment with social media at very little cost.
Elegant, flexible and open design allows developers to continue
to extend the Elgg platform. Integration with LDAP, OpenID,
Twitter, Facebook will help with continued adoption.
Community support is adequate for experimentation or small
communities but availability of commercial support or trained
staff will be essential for production corporate/enterprise
deployments.

21. Q&A
Deferred to the next session which is a
Panel Discussion

22. THANK YOU!