London Region ICT Champion

It’s been squeaky-bum time for everybody connected with the ICT Hub.

Yesterday afternoon was supposed to see the long awaited announcement of ICT’s fate as a nationally delivered support service, and when no announcement was made, our spies told us that any public announcements on ICT had been delayed until later today. To add grist to the conspiracy theorists mill, the Capacity Builders web site went down at 10am this morning (and is still down at 4pm), a portent of doom that ICT would not survive as a national support service - despite the overwhelming indication from the 9 new national workstreams that it was a key priority.

Watch this space - we’ll bring you the news as soon as we hear or the Capacity Builders website gets back on its feet.

It’s a little known rock ‘n roll fact that - almost 36 years ago to the day - David Bowie started his 1972 ‘Spiders from Mars’ world tour in the inauspicious surroundings of the Toby Jug, Tolworth (long since gone) before going onto the rather more glamorous Carnegie Hall, New York.

Obviously, we can’t quite compete with the glamour of a Bowie world tour, but the ICT Hub has 80+ ICT events scheduled around England between January and March 2008. We report from the London ICT Champion’s very-own mini-tour.

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It’s finally here - if you’re an accidental techie, a circuit rider or someone who supports the ICT of voluntary sector organisations in London - this is the forum for you.

Join us for an informal networking session and learn about the great projects we’re each working on and get the latest on the wonderful world of voluntary sector ICT and circuit riding. Feel free to bring a laptop - we have wireless internet access. After the forum, we’ll be continuing the discussion in the more convivial surroundings of the downstairs bar - so please join us for post-forum refreshments!

If you know of colleagues who’d also be interested in coming along - please pass this invite on to them.

**Confirm your place**
Follow the link to book your FREE place: http://londonictforum.eventbrite.com/

**Why you should drop everything and come along**
It’s new, it’s different, it’ll be fun and you get to share ideas and knowledge.

* Networking and knowledge sharing
* Circuit Riding - all the latest news and projects
* Circuit Rider conference 2008
* Resources and help

**Where and when**
4-6pm Wednesday 6 February 2008
Conference Room
Bread & Roses
68 Clapham Manor Street
London SW4 6DZ

Directions here.

**Anything else?**
We’re hoping this forum will be the first of many more, and to make this forum vibrant and useful we want you - the community - to contribute to future meetings. So we’ll be looking for folks to share their knowledge and experience with us - it might be about a great project idea you have, or using web based tools, or choosing the right database, or community wireless, or open source or something else ICT you want to share.

See you all there!

Lasa’s Ian Goodman reports from Idealware and Aspiration’s Managing NonProfit Technology Projects (MNTP) conference.

Last week I attended the Managing NonProfit Technology Projects (MNTP) conference in New York, USA. Despite some confusion (mainly on my part) on some of the language used - the conference was an excellent opportunity to learn and share ideas. I am happy to report that the ICT Hub Knowledgebase and Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector were both very well received.

The conference offered a great opportunity for learning about technology project management in the voluntary sector and shared experience of what does and does not work. It was interesting to see the disparity of opinion of whether managing technology projects in the voluntary and community sector was different to other sectors. The general consensus was that there was no real agreement - but it should be considered that the values of the sector do play a significant role in how projects are managed.

A full set of notes can be seen on the conference wiki - I was very impressed with the way the wiki was used to record notes from all the sessions and allows for attendees to add their own thoughts after the event.

The final session of the conference looked at whether a Community of Interest could be created around managing technology projects in the sector. There were a number interesting ideas on how to facilitate this - see the Brainstorm notes. It will be interesting to se how this develops and how we might think about something similar “this side of the pond”.

NB. Ian looks after the ICT Hub Knowledgebase and Suppliers’ Directory.

Welcome to the first bumper ICT news round-up of 2008 - follow the links.

**London ICT Workers Network**
Are you responsible for providing technical and strategic ICT support for your own and other organisations? Want to find out more about sources of help, learn about other ICT projects in the sector and network with others? Come to the first London ICT Workers Network, 4-6pm on 6 February 2008, Clapham. Contact Miles Maier for more.

**ICT Hub**
ICT Hub Newsletter Jan ‘08 (PDF 61kb) can be downloaded from here.

The ICT Hub café - the place for small voluntary organisations and charities to go if they need new media advice. Join in the discussion, or ask for some advice on new media and digital innovations.

ICT Hub National Conference - 11 March 2008 at Kensington Town Hall with workshops on:

• funding ICT
• managing your ICT
• open source
• greener computing
• podcasting
• accessible computing
• and much, much more!

ICT Hub National Awards 2008 - can you think of organisations deserving recognition for ICT innovation, accessibility, environmental benefit or ICT management? More information at: http://www.icthub.org.uk/ICT_Hub_Awards/

**Circuit Rider news**
Circuit Riders provide are mobile ICT support workers providing the sector with quality, independent advice. The Circuit Rider Conference will be in Birmingham, 28-29 Feb. Download the flyer from here:

The Dec/Jan ‘08 Circuit Rider news digest is now out. Download it from here: http://www.lasa.org.uk/circuitriders/crnewsdigest4.pdf

Effective Technology Advising Workshop (Birmingham) on 1 March - want to find out more about effective technology consulting? Go and get the flyer here: http://www.lasa.org.uk/circuitriders/flier_010308.pdf

**Events**
Whether you want to find out more about ICT Hub resources, open source, circuit riding or talk to database vendors, it’s all here. More here: http://www.icthub.org.uk/events

18 Jan - BTEG/ICT Hub event on ICT Resources for BMER organisations (at NCVO)

04 Feb - London ICT Workers Network, Clapham

12 Feb - Voluntary Arts England/ICT Hub event on ICT Resources for Arts organisations (at Shelter)

26 Feb - ICT Hub event ICT Resources for BMER organisations (at NCVO)

27/28 Feb - CHASE (Charities and Associations Exhibition), Islington Business Design Centre

28/29 Feb - Circuit Rider Conference, Birmingham

5 Mar - Ruralnet national conference, Chippenham

11 Mar - ICT Hub National Conference, Kensington Town Hall

**Free Publications**
Two new FREE publications are now available from the ICT Hub.

ICT Foresight: Charitable Giving and Fundraising in a Digital World

Future Focus 3: How will we use new technologies in five years’ time?

Go to: http://www.icthub.org.uk/publications/

**ICT Volunteering**
IT4Communities volunteer newsletter is now out.

http://www.it4communities.org.uk/it4c/newsletters/Volunteer40/welcome.html

**Capacity Builders**
Capacity Builders - National support services - lead bodies for the two final workstreams have been announced. NCVO will be the lead partner for the ‘Responding to Social Change’ workstream, which we understand will include ICT. Bassac will be leading on the ‘collaboration’ workstream.

More here: http://tinyurl.com/2mut3d

In partnership with BTEG (Black Training & Enterprise Group) the London ICT Champion is hosting a FREE half day event that will help BMER, refugee and asylum seeker organisations to get the most out of ICT Hub resources - such as the ICT Hub Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory.

Where and when:
09.30 to 1.30pm on 18 January 2008 at NCVO, Regent’s Wharf, 8 All Saints Street, London, N1 9RL

See map.

Who is it for:
BMER, refugee and asylum seeker organisations.

Workshops include:

• How to Cost and Fund ICT - get that database project funded! This session takes you through the steps of planning, costing and measuring the success of your ICT project.
• ICT Hub Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory - don’t know where to start on planning that new website or database project? Don’t know which IT companies to trust? This workshop will get you started .
• How connected are you? - introduction to BTEG’s ‘Specialist Infrastructure” project.

We’ll also be distributing free copies of the ICT Hub’s Guide to Managing your Organisation’s ICT and How to cost and Fund ICT.

Booking:
Contact Lynette Grant at BTEG. Email: lynette@bteg.co.uk