A few months ago, we wrote about (and signed onto) the "Integration Proclamation" calling for data standards to promote interoperability between tools in the nonprofit space.

There's been a lot of conversation since then, on lists and off, about what that standard should look like: XML? vCard? Something new? What about the fields and the data structure?

Unfortunately, in the real development of standards, these questions are so secondary that they're almost beside the point. These are discussions about data formats -- particular schemes of organizing information. But data formats are easy. The hard part about standards is the collective adoption of one format in particular.

Standards don't result from clever programming or even adroit diplomacy. They result from profit-sustaining incentives that drive users and developers to the same format.

Ever get this message when you click on a link in an email?

Email Scam Alert

Thunderbird thinks this site is suspicious! It may be trying to impersonate the web page you want to visit. Are you sure you want to visit www.democracyinaction.org?

These warnings arise because of the links in a message, and frequently because of the tracking of the clicks for that message. Thunderbird (or Outlook, or whatever) is responding to how that link looks to it, and suspects something bad is going on. It's not, but there are a few things to be aware of when using Salsa, or any email system that tracks click rates for emails.