ICT Management

London ICT eBulletin-July 2010 highlights

By Lasa Computanews

A summary of the best bits from the Lasa ICT eBulletin - July 2010.

Lasa European Not-For-Profit Technology Conference - Will The Cloud Save The Sector? Opportunities for Efficiencies and Innovation

@ Garden Museum, London, SE11, 28 and 29 September - formerly the Circuit Rider Conference, the annual event for anyone interested or involved in voluntary sector ICT support and development. More information and booking on the UK Riders conference page.

Lasa Technology Surgery Day

Does your organisation need advice on your ICT?

As part of its Building Bridges to ICT Excellence project, Lasa is organising its first ever Technology Surgery event for small and medium sized voluntary sector organisations. The event will take place on Monday 27 September at CTT’s offices in Old Street, London, N1.

We are getting together eminent technology "surgeons" who can give advice and information on a wide range of ICT issues ranging from websites, open source software and fundraising to social media. If you have general queries then you can go through our triage and we’ll hook you up with the most appropriate adviser. We’ll also be giving out copies of the new Lasa ICT Handbook to help you record all the important details of your ICT systems. An appointment system will be set up soon but, in the meantime, to register your organisation's interest please email Miles Maier at Lasa mmaier@lasa.org.uk

Using the internet for e-conferencing

Louise Brown over at NCVO reports back on how the first European Participation for Change conference went and the tools and technology used to support and run it in the article How are we using technology to connect people accross Europe?

Getting the nation online

Race Online 2012 has recently published its Manifesto for a Networked Nation to support their vision of "... our ambition to make the UK the first nation where everyone can use the web." Download the (extremely poorly designed) pdf or view chapters online. Once digested, you can discuss the implications for the third sector at Louise Brown's NCVO blog.

The Moto in the Community Trust

The Trust is a grant making charity which looks to support a wide variety of local charity and community projects. Their Community Grant Scheme is the most appropriate scheme for outside bodies wishing to approach the Moto in the Community Trust.

There is no minimum or maximum amount though it would be unusual for the Trustees to approve a grant exceeding £10,000. The next Trustee meeting when grants are approved is in October. They only consider grants for projects that benefit communities where Moto is present, or that they have a significant staff catchment. As a rule their catchment area is 25 miles radius of a Moto site (there is a Moto at Heston Services on the M4 so West London groups should certainly qualify). More information about Moto in the Community.

New Facebook guide

John Haydon has written the 100-odd page Complete Facebook Guide for NonProfits (11.5Mb pdf download).

Disposing of old kit?

Before you dispose of that ancient PC, check Computer Aid International's Guide to Choosing an IT Disposal Partner (110Kb pdf download)

Low understanding of cloud computing

New research by GFI Software shows a surprisingly high proportion of senior business decision-makers and IT professionals are still unclear about Cloud Computing. Furthermore, the key perception that low cost will be the prime selling point and security threats will be a big weakness are not backed up by the research. Download the pdf (550Kb)

EU wants UK to get tough on data protection

According to PCPro, the European Commission has said the UK's data protection isn't strong enough to meet EU rules, as the Information Commissioner can't perform spot checks on organisations holding personal data and can only impose penalties under certain circumstances. See the full EU wants UK to get tough on data protection article.

What's your carbon footprint?

Jim Lynch over on TechSoup tells you How to calculate your environmental impact.

It's all at the Co-Op

Co-Operative Systems bulletins contain many tips to help keep your organisation's ICT running smoothly - check out the A-Z of articles.

Office 2010 vs OpenOffice.org 3.2

TechSoup, courtesy of Idealware, lets Microsoft's latest Office release slug it out with the latest version of the open source contender. Read the full Microsoft Office vs OpenOffice.org article.

Come together

John Kenyon looks at some cool online collaboration tools - Etherpad, Yammer, Present.ly and more...

Overcoming the fear factor

Beth Kanter, blogger extraordinaire and author of new book The Networked NonProfit "deconstructs" the fear organisations have over getting into social media.

The death of email?

Allyson Kapin on Frogloop disagrees with Facebook COO's Sheryl Sandberg's pronouncement that social networking tools will replace email. See the article Social Networks to replace Email. Not!!!

The London ICT e-bulletin.

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