IT for communities awards ceremony

Congratulations to the following people from the south east whose contribution was acknowledged at the IT4C awards. ceremony
Gary Axford Riverside Centre Newport isle of wight - winner best IT volunteer
Pip Jones Community Base Brighton
Steven Bowers Sally Grey berkshire county blind society
Paul Campbell and Sevenoaks area mind - Winner best volunteering project - innovation
This is an excellent way of raising the profile of how volunteers with IT skills can deliver change in community organistions - check out the IT4C website at www.it4communities.org.uk for more details

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Mark Walker, Project Manager, SCIP
Regional ICT Champion, South East of England

SCIP: IT Services for Charities and Communities
Community Base, Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XG
T: 01273 234049 M: 07956 627116
E: mark@scip.org.uk F: 01273 234731
Blog: www.scipmark.org.uk

TV voting scandals and poor e-democracy both destroy trust

SCIP's Chair Dan Jellinek runs a major annual conference on eDemocracy. I saw him in the pub last week - the day after the event - and he was saying that his keynote speaker, Prof Stephen Coleman of Leeds University, had kicked things off with a great speech. He used comparisons with the scandal about voting on Blue Petter and Ant and Dec to raise questions about how seriously government is taking the use of technology.
Given that the event is popular with government officials, from all levels of government, it was heartening to hear of an academic forcing them to look beyond the technology to the respect for the individuals. He makes the point that the case for the role of the web in Government has now been well and truly made, and that emphasis now must be on public organisations using it to deliver real change.
You can hear/see a fascinating interview with Prof Coleman captured by Dave Wilcox later that day, hosted on Dave's site:

Designing for Civil Society: TV voting scandals and poor e-democracy both destroy trust

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Review of entry level CMS

If you know what Drupal and Joomla are you'll appeciate this review of SNews, which seems to be a useful addition for entry level sites, especially if they aren't blogs.
If you don't know what I'm talking about I'd be very surprised if you decide to click through to it.

‘websites powered by sNews’

Laura’s Notebook | Technology for Non-profit Organisations, Social Media and Website Design » Blog Archive » sNews - an easy and simple web publishing tool for non profit organisations

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