Local Hubs - win-win options
March 11, 2008 Posted by julzswitch in : Environment, South West region, Flexible Working, Guest Bloggers , 1 comment so farI am doing some research today ahead of an event next Wednesday in Devon which is bringing together people from public, private and third sector organisation to look at the development of local ICT ‘hubs’. The event is being promoted by Community Council of Devon and COSMIC jointly and has already engaged interest from the County Council, BT, University of Plymouth, RDA and others.
There are several counties already running projects in the UK which provide ICT resources in local communities using facilities such as village halls, post offices, libraries and pubs and its interesting to see how these are now developing a new level of support given the need for everyone to take environmental issues more seriously. Examples I am looking at include - Somerset Broadplaces, Connecting Dorset and Switched on Shropshire
By providing access to services and resources in local communities we should be able to reduce the need for travel and our ongoing reliance on so many vehicles. I also think that if we extend this to shared work-based use of local facilities such as community centres and village halls it becomes a win-win situation. Many of us know about the issues with homeworking (isolation, lack of social support, etc) and so if we developed locally shared workspaces which could be used by a range of employers not only do we provide people with improved working arrangements, but we also develop new and much-needed income streams for local venues. I am going to encourage many more people to think about local hubs in this way and increase the debate as much as possible, starting with next Wednesday.
Julie Harris, COSMIC
Announcing the Connecting Bristol Bloggers
Posted by Stephen Hilton in : Bristol, Technology, Guest Bloggers , 2 commentsBlogging creates a fantastic opportunity to experience the world through the words of others. It is also far easier to invite people to write stuff for you, rather than to do it all yourself! Therefore, we are delighted to announce that over the next two months, a series of Special Guest Bloggers will be contributing their views, thoughts and experiences of technology, innovation, digital inclusion and life, here on the Connecting Bristol Blog.
This is the line-up…
- 10th - 17th March, Julie Harris, South West Regional ICT Champion & Chief Executive at COSMIC - a leading social enterprise delivering ICT services to the voluntary and community sector. Read Julie’s first post here
- 18th - 23rd March, Andy Martin, Head of Strategy (Fundraising and Marketing) for Cancer Research UK and Director of Firetail, a strategy consulting and technology firm.
- 24th - 30th March, Makala Cheung, Press and Communications Officer at Knowle West Media Centre & local resident. Makala will be blogging live as the state-of-the-art and environmentally friendly new Knowle West Media Centre prepares to officially open. Makala says, “I work in the area I live in - Knowle West. I love that I can walk to work, feel connected to my local community, and I can tackle my work from a residents as well as workers perspective. I love the Media Centre, because it supports my personal and career growth and learning, just as it does for the community”
- 31st - 6th April, Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds. A world-renown commentator on e-democracy and Government, Stephen Coleman has spent many years exploring and writing about the relationship between digital media and citizenship. His new book ‘The Internet and Democratic Citizenship’, written with Jay Blumer, will be published by Cambridge University Press later this year. He argues that e-democracy calls for profound cultural as well as technological changes.
- 7th - 13th April, Jeff McWhinney, Director at SignVideo/Significan’t and former Chief Executive at the British Deaf Association. Jeff will also run a signing-video version of his blog (as long as Oliver can get the widget thing to work).
- 14th - 20thApril, George Kaloudis, MyKP, Australia’s leading community Wi-Fi provider
- 21st - 27th April, Pier Mucelli, Founder and Chief Executive of the award-winning e-Office
We look forward to seeing what our guests have to say. We have promised not to edit or meddle as long as they stay legal. We hope you find their contributions engaging.
Stephen
COSMIC sees through the storm
March 10, 2008 Posted by julzswitch in : Bristol, Events, South West region, collaboration, Guest Bloggers , 1 comment so farHello Connecting Bristol, and thank you for asking me to be guest blogger for the week - I feel privileged to join in. I thought it would be useful to reflect each day on my role as Regional ICT Champion for the third sector here in the South West, as well as on my role as Chief Executive at COSMIC - and there’s always plenty to say about both roles.
Well what a start to the day - storms overnight meant a collapsed fence first thing at the office - we decided that we would wait and see if the weather got worse before fixing it. Sounds like an analogy for a few organisations I know recently!
Last week, on Wednesday 5th March, we ran the Rural ICT Conference at Lackham College near Chippenham and today I have been pulling together presentations, reports and feedback to complete a post-conference report. It has reminded me of the value of documenting events and reflecting on their value, for the benefit of those not able to attend but also to remind people who were there what we achieved in just one day! It really was a great event and lots of discussions and debate focussed on initiatives, campaigns and collaboration which will help to make the work of rural VCOs more effective using ICT. I will be posting a full copy of the event report on my Champs blog soon.
In the process of pulling the conference report together I have been using SlideShare to upload and share the various powerpoints from the day. If you haven’t used it already then its worth a try. You can upload full copies of powerpoints to the online store and then share them with contacts or the wider world.
Here at COSMIC we have been reviewing recent decisions and some others which are imminent which could offer more funding for the delivery of ICT support to third sector organisations across the region. Both Capacity Builders and the Big Lottery BASIS programme are looking at their funding programmes and making announcements in the coming weeks. We will be looking for as many opportunities as possible to boost the ICT support available to organisations. Good news is that Regional ICT Champions funding will continue for a further three years, and we are hopeful that the powers-that-be at the lottery will also identify ICT as a key support issue in its BASIS round 2 funding.
This week I am writing in three separate blogs - this one for Connecting Bristol, my Champs blog as shown above, and also one as Social Enterprise Ambassador. I just hope people are reading them all … or at least one of them!
Julie Harris, COSMIC
