News from ITEM3

I’ve started a new newsletter, “News from ITEM 3“, to help promote resources, events in the region etc. As well as being for frontline organisations to use, infrastructure organisations can “cut and paste” bits out of it for their own newsletters, use it in its entirety, email it out etc. The idea is that it is a flexible resource to help groups find out more about what IT can do for them. First edition can be downloaded here:

News from ITEM 3(as word doc, 65Kb)

Feedback welcome.

Live blog – follow up and thoughts

The live blog last week worked really well -certainly the audience seemed to appreciate the power of “Web 2.0″. I’ve now uploaded all of the pics to Flickr. Thanks to all that “dipped in” to the blog during the day and left comments.

Some useful learning that I’d like to share:

• Live blogging is VERY demanding: trying to capture people’s comments during the presentations; take, edit and upload pics; present and talk to people about the work of the ICT Hub and Digital Umbrella during the coffee breaks; moderating comments before publishing them - all too much for one man!
• The 3G data card worked really well  – speeds of 1.4Mbps were seen. However, if you are considering getting one think about how much the data charges will be. The internet “traffic” (uploading etc) at the conference was about 18Mb – or £30 on our current tariff.
• None of the ICT Hub publications are in alternative languages – (or braille?). Not an issue at this conference…but it might have been. Something for the hub to think about?

As a result of the CIO conference blog”experiment”, my organisation (High Peak CVS  – the parent of Digital Umbrella) will be holding a “virtual” AGM, alongside the real AGM in October – with a cyberzone / internet cafe during the event, live blog etc. More info to follow. And it won’t just be me blogging!

Regional Projects Meeting

My first “public “meeting in my role as regional champion was arranging the meeting of ICT projects in the region. We have being meeting approximately every three months for the last year or so, to share ideas, network etc. The meeting yesterday was in Loughborough, hosted by Ray Smith and his team at LCC.

We had a good turnout, despite it being “holiday season”, including Andy and Terryfrom Ashfield Links; Alex from VAL; Andrew from PurpleZebra, Paul Webster from the hub, John Powderly. Issues discussed included:

• Current work the hub is undertaking (with Paul updating about the new unmet needs fund, SKiLD training workshops for development workers and the soon to be published ICT Good Management Guide)
• The regional champion mission and workplan
• Update on the regional ICT strategy
• Proposed CircuitRider accreditation

Minutes will be sent to those on the email list and are published here. Please let me know if you are not currently on the email group and want adding to it.