Inclusion and Justice … are you in ?

I’ve been at the Digital Inclusion 2008 conference today …. an event that I should have been helping David Wilcox and Dave Briggs live blog in words and video….

…

Only by the blank space above you can see this didn’t happen! Apologies! The lesson I have learnt is that you can’t participate fully in an event and live blog it as well - I participated and the experts Dave (Briggs) and David (Wilcox) did the magnificent job of capturing the event and peoples thoughts.

The event was very well attended with many people genuinely interested in closing the divide between those groups and individuals that are proficient users of technology and those who are not.

What was even more encouraging for me was that almost everyone who spoke from the platform mentioned that the Third Sector were seen as playing a vital part in the Digital Inclusion agenda. The list included Baroness Andrews OBE (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State CLG), Stephen Dodson (Director DC10plus) and Rt Hon Paul Murphy MP (The Minister for Digital Inclusion).

Yes, these are names and words in speeches, but I got a real sense that across all government departments there is an urgency to involve all citizens, young people, older people and Third Sector users of in technology.

There are plenty of thorny issues ahead in terms of who does what, support, training and providing sustainable solutions, but I hope you will agree that given a fair investment we are up for the challenge.

As my posts often spiral onto other topics, please forgive me as I was moved today to read about the Justice For Tom case - how the treatment of one man separated from his family and held on remand in a Kenyan jail can be so unjust. Make your own mind up about the facts of the case, but if you believe in honest, fair treatment of any human being then you will see the political games taking place regardless of the facts surrounding Ton protecting his land and animals.

Please let others know and spread the Justice For Tom link around and even display the badge on your website or blog.

Seeing Collaboration

Bit of a light bulb moment on the train back from the South West ICT meeting in Exeter today.

It’s not that I’ve just discovered what collaboration is; I know effective progress, visible development and meeting your aims, your goals or whatever, comes through working collaboratively. If you don’t believe me Clay Shirky on David Wilcox’s blog explains it much better than I ever could.

OK no surprises there… people have been working together and holding meetings since caveman times, but the trick often missed is how we actually effect collaboration.

There maybe just two people or there maybe a room full of organisations, but to truly collaborate they must all want the same thing and without saying me, me, me share ideas openly and make plans on how to take it forward.

Stating the obvious. Easy.

Seeing it working in practice. Hard ? I did think, but yesterday and twice today I’ve seen genuine leaps forward and I am encouraged!

We are listening

Firstly to say hello to anyone now visiting this site either from the ICT Support section of the NAVCA website or the Capacitybuilders Improving Support website, also I guess if you are redirected from the old ICT Hub website which soon will be no more (get those publications from the old site while you still can).

As the Regional Champions project is now under the watch of NAVCA all links now lead here.

Where did that last couple of weeks go; did you get anywhere?

I’ve been away and to the the Collaborate2008 conference which was a great chance to … err collaborate (!) and to celebrate the 10th birthday of Ruralnet (the link above takes you to videos and pictures from the day).

What else have I been doing. Well to use this quote “You have two ears / eyes and one mouth … use them in that proportion” wise words indeed, words which I have been following. I’m going through a period of reflection, thought and planning for the future, in many ways at the moment.

• I’m reading a lot more blogs and websites, seeing what others have to say …. and of course (as we all should) leaving comments too.
• I’m collecting thoughts and opinions from that pseudo-evil tool they call Twitter!
• I’ve collected all the evaluations of the Regional Champion work from the past 12 months and am reading it to see what worked well and where the successes and progress compared to April 2007 have been …. oh yes there have been some fantastic ones to tell you about soon!
• I’m looking to the future. What can the nine Regional ICT Champions do next. Where are the gaps, what does each Sub-regional ChangeUp consortia need from its ICT.
• And finally - personally as a necessity right now, I’ve just had a week “off-tech” in rural Suffolk with no laptop, no wi-fi and patchy phone signal (no 3G at all!). Highly recommended - thinking and listening to my own thoughts!

We are listening - if there is something you’d like to see develop within your regional or sub-regional ICT infrastructure do get in touch.

We will all be putting 100% into delivering this, but will be listening and seeing what is needed 200%.

Intertwingled

Its the word of the weekend. Whether Joanna used it accidentally or if its used all the time in Birmingham circles I don’t know, however I thought it summed up perfectly the way Social Media / Web 2.0 is being used right now. Incedentally the very word has an interesting history - if you want a diversion Joanna pointed me to David Weinberger and Scott Rosenberg who write about  Ted Nelson being the originator of this very interesting word.

So, I asked a question on Twitter to Joanna Geary about the snowy weather in Birmingham and found out she lives close to where my son is at Birmingham University, a Tweet later we were talking about both knowing Nick Booth and then greater community involvement and empowerment through use of Social Media sites such as Twitter and Blogging.

This last bit got me thinking. Do I feel more a part of the community (for example my local newspaper?) if I am able to leave them blog comments and to upload Podcasts and Videocasts ? The answer is most definatley Yes … but only if I have the knowledge that there is a real person reading my thoughts and that I know there are mechanisms in place to respond to them and the confidence to know this will be done in an appropriate way. Just like the imaginary Web 2.0 party, you don’t pour out your life story over cheese and pineapple on a stick to someone who then tells the world do you?

More Intertwingling last week through the power of Twitter saw me meeting up with Emma Mulqueeny, Louise Brown and David Wilcox (all in one day!) and then Nick Booth a day later.

Too many conversations to relate in detail - about subjects as diverse as Justice for Tom, locked down school intranets and the future of membership organisations.

A particular one mentioned more than once was the merits of the HMGOV and DowningStreet twitter streams (which are here and here) and in relation to the previous paragraph - what reason are you / am I signing up to these two feeds for? Is it to get all press releases from HMGOV (useful if dull) or to feel more connected to what happens inside No. 10 (voyeuristic and dynamic)? HMGOV is a one way broadcast, DowningStreet is a conversation, but who is listening?

Life is not dull !

More intertwingling this week with visits to the North West ICT Group, the Collaborate2008 event (complete with live Twittering) and a meeting of the DC10plus team. If anyone is around Manchester, Birmingham or Bristol and wants a non-virtual coffee then Tweet me at watfordgap.

The ICT Hub website is still live if you need to get hold of any publications and resources, but keep checking the Regional Champions page or the Ruralnet website for details of the net:gain programme.

What are you doing?

Twitter says “What are you doing?” ….. Singing its praises.

Like a lot of relationships mine with Twitter has been a bit on and off over the past 9 months or so.

I was going to ponder on an elaborate post - but that’s not what the New Web is all about - blogging is about capturing the moment (as Hubmum showed last night) and conveying instant thoughts in micro-blogs … in less than 140 characters if you use Twitter. (Side note - see English 140).

(Twitter by Commoncraft - if you want a simple no nonsense video of what it is all about).

I’m “on” with Twitter now for a number of reasons

• There a network of like minded people I am sharing 140-character-bite-size chunks of information with.
• You can “track” what others are saying about a topic
• The Hashtag enables a group of people at event or going to an event to use its power to draw themselves to each other.
• It’s fun – following the twists and turns of The Apprentice with other Twitterers last night was just such – well I thought so anyway.
• You get to meet read the blogs of a wider range of interesting and inspiring people - recently for me like Emma and Jeremy.
• Its about sharing stuff, telling people “its gone cloudy, but was sunny this morning”.
• Its about collaborating “I’ve got an X, you’ve got a Y,can we together build a great XY?”

Beth Kanter asked a question on Twitter last night that made me think. “What was your Twitter Ah Ha moment when it proved its worth?” (Beth - can you reply with the results of this Twitterpoll please?)

So I am sat here thinking….

“Yes, it was a desperate plea a few weeks ago for help to a technical / logistical problem for which I needed a quick answer. Twitter followers answered - I said thanks”.

How true, but actually as I type my Twitter moment has just happened (again!).

Its that Twitter is just so amazingly flexible, adaptable and mouldable to your life. I have a light-bulb over my head just re-reading bits of Paul Caplans blog about sending Hashtags from your phone to yourself with to do lists and URLs you’ve spotted than then pop up in your RSS feed when back at a PC. How cool really great is that !

Twitter is only limited by the creativity of those gifted to “mash-it-up” with other applications and our thoughts on how these apply to us.

I don’t “know” a lot of my Twitter followers, but because I know they are in similar situations to me and we are all working to solve similar problems there is a kind of bond there.

 

Twitter says “What are you doing?” … Being controversial.

I will end with this news item from Charity Finance

Some of the problems may be with the Charity Commissions internal ICT capabilities or with the procedures they are asking organisations to go through, but you also do have to ask why are some small Charities and Voluntary Organisations having problems with their use of ICT to submit their returns

Is the difficulty at their end?

If it is, could it be because they don’t have the equipment / skills / infrastructure / support / Internet bandwidth (circle as appropriate) to make the submissions.

What is needed is a co-ordinated national programme of ICT infrastructure development with nationally developed guides, websites (Knowledgebase) and resources applicable for use by small front line VCOs and cascaded out regionally and sub-regionally so each of these VCOs knows of a trusted local point of contact they can call on for support and help …..

….. that’ll be the ICT Hub then.

Browsing around

Two more ICT Hub branded publications for you to get your hands on this week.

First, an ICT survival guide for Trustees full of useful excersizes and help in putting in place effective governance for the ICT of their organisations and secondly a guide to costing and planning to get more out of the telephony systems of organisations.

Miles Maier, the London ICT Champion has summarised the Governance Guide and the Telephony Guide in more detail over on his blog so I will spare you the time of reading about them in detail here as well, but these links will take you to download the Governance Guide (399k) and the Telephony Guide (64k).

I was putting together a pack of all the ICT Hub resources to be sent out to a CVS ICT worker today and thought - if you put together all the books and guides the ICT Hub has produced you pretty much have everything a small group or a development worker needs to know about ICT in the Third Sector. Funding, Managing, using New Media, Accessibility and now Governance … they are all available for download on the publications page or in hard copy from your local regional champion.

Regional Champion contact details are all now listed on this blog. These people have been funded by Capacitybuilders to make ICT Infrastructure work better … so contact them to see how they can help you work through the publications and signpost you to local Circuit Riders and providers of support to get you organisation to really make a difference to the way it uses ICT.

“Do you know a good plumber?”

Where do you look if you want to find an answer to a question about using ICT or if you want to find out what is an RSS feed or what are the latest developments using 3G mobile access as an alternative to broadband?

Where can you find someone to fix your poorly PC or advise you about putting together a plan for how your organisation uses ICT? Like the plumber or the electrician, how do you find one that is fair and affordable?

• You may use Google - hit and miss and an lot of results to sift through
• You could try a Wikipedia article - good idea but my not have the voluntary sector slant
• There is Experts Online - currently need to register, but a good second place
• Personally i’d go for the Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory developed by Lasa.

“Of course you’d say that - its a resource that’s part of the ICT Hub!”. Yes, this true, but its not just me saying this. Everywhere my travels take me I hear of people using the Knowledgebase to answer their questions and the Suppliers Directory to … errr compare Suppliers!

However the point of this post is to raise the fact that these two valuable on-line services may soon be severly restricted in their updates or even may disappear!

We welcome the investment Capacitybuilders have made in ICT infrastructure at a National and Regional level through the Regional Champions and net:gain.

We understand that some ICT publications will still be available, but to keep these on-line resources fresh, current and as the authoritative place to go for advice investment is still needed. As Miles points out - this may not be forthcoming, so if you have used either of these and you value them then email Miles with a message of support.

Others have blogged about the events I have attended recently (thanks!) so for the Circuit Riders conference see the ICT Hub page and the crconf08 page complete with flickr pictures and reports from each session. This week it was the Rural ICT conference in Chippenham where issues around Rural Broadband, access to rural ICT services and many more were discussed and debated (further report to follow).

If any of you are coming to the National ICT Hub conference this week, say hello! If you can’t be there - or just want a sneak preview of one session have a look at what Mark Osten has to say about Funding for ICT.

Good News !

Couple of connected posts this week - which will probably only be of interest either anyone with a passing interest in Third Sector ICT (will we be officially moving to call it “Civil Society”?) or to anyone thinking “where is that “*****” Mr Webster when they keep getting my voice mail or out of office reply. If you are neither of these I apologise – you may find this more interesting. Do join in the conversation if you do find this interesting … or even not so..

Monday started the week with the monthly ICT Hub operations team meeting in London. As usual at these meetings it was good to hear of the progress being made by the partner organisations (such as Media Trust) in their work with minority communities. The ICT Hub has come in for a lot of criticism in the last two years but honestly we have been productive. You think?

Tuesday saw me hopping over the Pennines to attend (at short notice) the NAVCA / SKiLD conference for CVS / LIO development workers. My table was laden down with the many ICT Hub resources and was reassuringly visited by a constant stream of people generally asking the same couple of questions.

• Either to do with what advice to give small groups wanted to use ICT more effectively to reach members,
• Or, how they can find a supplier who understands the nature of the Third Sector and doesn’t over charge. Hmmm !

I took time away from the table to listen to the talk given by 11 times Gold Medal winning British Paralympic athlete Tanni Grey Thompson DBE - well worth it if you get the chance. She spoke about the motivators that helped in her many victories, having a clear aim, staying focussed but breaking down work into manageable chunks and writing lists … my kind of person !

An update from Mark Freeman of the Workforce Hub included an announcement that NAVCA have been awarded by Capacitybuilders funding for the SKiLD programme and the three year £1.1million programme to co-ordinate the work of the 9 Regional ICT Champions. Thank You!

After tipping my metaphorical hat to the statue of Alan Turing (the man without whom we wouldn’t all be in this game) we celebrated with a couple of Shandy’s in the Eden Bar before another train ride took me to Liverpool for the North West Champion’s ICT for Faith Groups consultation meeting on Wednesday.

After being woken at 1am by the earthquake (yes felt on the 6^th floor of the hotel in Liverpool) Wednesday dawned bright and sunny ready for the day ahead.

Together with my usual use of public transport I used my new toy (Nokia E51 phone, GPS and Nokia Maps software) to very smoothly find on foot the venue in Huyton. This use of techno toys tied in with Sean Brady who talked about the use of Social Media by Faith Organisations. Sean said how organisations (not just Faith based!) can put themselves on Google Earth so that as people are passing they are alerted to features, services and information about these places of interest. He also showed the Commoncraft video on Wiki’s (why are Commoncraft videos just SO GOOD!!) and the use of Podcasting.

My new website find for the day - Walk Score (fascinating - try it!) and my Social Media find … TiddlyWiki. Any thoughts anyone?

Evening at home watch The Blades misfortune in exiting the FA Cup before packing the Watfordgap bag to venture to the Lasa Circuit Riders conference in Birmingham tomorrow.

Sun, sea and suppliers

Before I forget and we move forward to the next week of hectic activity, I promised your Part 1 of this week’s two parter.

On Monday I journeyed down to the seaside to visit Mark Walker at SCIP in sunny Brighton …. which true to the title it was ! Clear blue sky and sun … not bad for February.

Forget this ‘Third Sector’ or ‘Voluntary Sector’ labelling I think we should be called the ‘Innovation and Adaptability Sector’! That’s what we do and that’s what I did helping Mark set up for the South East “Suppliers Fair / Network Meeting”. Boxes were moved, tables and chairs laid out and after suppliers had installed themselves 45 minutes later the 30 or so small voluntary groups and organisations arrived.

Matt Legg introduced proceedings and Mark then covered why organisations need databases (volume - see previous post!) a bit about managing ICT, planning ICT using net:gain and then where to go for sources of technical support.

There then followed what should have been a ’speed networking’ session between the vol orgs and the suppliers, but which morphed into more of a ’slow chat’ session. No bad thing though, and it shows innovation as a I heard a lot of very useful and productive discussions taking place as organisations quizzed suppliers on how a database could help them, why they needed to plan their ICT and who to call when things go wrong.

After a wrap up talk from Mark the conversations continued and everyone went away with ideas to move their organisations forward and good clutch of resources from the ICT Hub and others,

We packed up the tables and chairs, carried on talking and then drifted off back to the station for the long journey back up North.

Over the past two years I’ve been to a lot of this type of event (30 people, a few suppliers, and a decent speaker in a room together) and never once I have gone away thinking “that was a waste of time - everyone has got their ICT needs and plans in order”.

Lets hope we can continue to do many more the same…. I guess one day I will be able to say “The ICT needs of this Third Sector are done” … until then….

Not a paintbrush in sight

The ICT Hub tour rolls on…. Part 1 for this week will follow later. First of all Part 2.

Wednesday and its Birmingham, “A Wider Embrace“, or ICT and Voluntary Arts Organisations.

OK - what is different about ICT for arts organisations to ICT for any other type of organisation … Robin Simpson (CEO Voluntary Arts Network) took us through how arts organisations are using ICT - which exactly fits in with what the messages of the ICT Hub are.

These were conveyed as an “interactive powerpoint” (watford gap and other ‘volunteers’ holding bullet point cards and running (!) onto the stage in pseudo-powerpoint slide style - I was the Whoosh effect … you had to be there!)

Whilst we held the bulleted words “speed”, “volume”, “cost” and “fashion” in mind, the ways ICT is used or could be used by Voluntary Arts organisations were covered.

• bulk communication with members (volume, speed)
• effective communication with the public (volume, cost…. and maybe fashion)
• data handling (volume)
• capture and share artistic activity - the ‘killer app’ for many arts groups (fashion)

“Fashion” is an interesting one… if you are thinking about adopting a social media tool, then by the time the wheels have been put in motion within the management and trustees of your vol org it has probably been superseded with something else!

For me it was important to remember that groups need to stay in touch, to keep fresh and to gain interest from new and younger members, but also to be realistic about their ICT and even recognise that there are times when an old fashioned card index or photocopied flyer are the right choice…. I’d say that there are more times when a blog or a twitter conversation are better … but I would wouldn’t I !

Morning workshops covered VOIP (cost), ICT planning (speed) and e-learning (fashion) and afternoon workshops covered FOSS (fashion), managing contacts (volume) and new media from our old friend Paul Caplan (fashion).

Lots of interest from arts groups, some of who want to do better things with existing ICT and some that want to get the basics right and do things better. Another successful day for the ICT Hub!

Other side notes - Louise has has posted about today too and inevitably I have still not met Susie! How is this possible?