Archive for 2007

Organisations learning how to get a presence on Facebook

Beth Kanter explores how Simon Berry of Ruralnet UK has enabled his organisation to have a presence of its own on Facebook. You too can leave your non profits’ Facebook tips and best practice for success over on Beth’s Blog. See the article at: Simon Berry’s Facebook Advice on Beth’s Blog.

Continue reading “Organisations learning how to get a presence on Facebook” »

Free screenreader software to assist the blind and visually impaired

Over on David Wilcox’s Designing for Civil Society site, David recently reported about Roger Wilson-Hinds, who was demonstrating screenreader software at the e-democracy conference. The screenreader (known as ‘Thunder’) not only reads text out loud, but also can increase the text size for those that can see. It also helps with managing information, RSS feeds, podcasts and much more.

Continue reading “Free screenreader software to assist the blind and visually impaired” »

Accessibility 2.0: UK newspaper websites featured in study

Today, I was contacted by Laura Oliver who writes for Journalism.co.uk - a leading website for journalists.

Laura informed me that their site is launching a series of features and articles that will be published throughout this week on the accessibility of the UK’s main newspaper websites to blind and visually impaired users. They’ve conducted their own study and assessment of the country’s largest newspaper media websites with a team of volunteers.

Continue reading “Accessibility 2.0: UK newspaper websites featured in study” »

Consultation on accessible government websites

The UK government has issued a consultation document on ‘Delivering Inclusive Websites’.
Read the full story at the Web Standards Project.

Continue reading “Consultation on accessible government websites” »

sNews - an easy and simple web publishing tool for non profit organisations

I’ve been keeping an eye on sNews for a while now, and have given it a good road test for use as a simple CMS (content management system) that will meet the needs of many voluntary and community organisations.

The choice of CMS to use for any nonprofit organisation should be always considered carefully. Will it meet your needs now, but also in the future as your organisation grows?

I use a wide range of open source CMS, depending on the needs of the group or client that I’m designing for. MODx is and always will be one of my favourites for all sites from simple right through to complex needs as it is very web developer friendly and works well for web standards and accessibility. Drupal and Joomla I still use, although more occasionally now.
The CMS listed above I generally work with for medium to larger sites with more complex needs or for database integration.
What about the tools I use for smaller and simpler websites that need easy content managing and updating features?
Wordpress is another ‘CMS’ which essentially is a blogging tool, although very able and adaptable to become a good viable CMS for an organisation and I am increasingly developing more sites with Wordpress as a base at the request of clients and increased usage and recent promotion in the non profit technology area here in the UK. Wordpress is a good tool, although to me, isn’t the only one that should be considered as a ’smaller’ CMS for organisations.
(CMSMadeSimple is another great easy to use CMS which I aim to review at some point in the future).

So why sNews?

Wordpress as I mentioned above is at it’s heart a blogging tool. Often organisations, especially small ones such as clubs and associations and other small service providers stretched to capacity with lack of time, are seeking a way to have an effective website that they can manage and update content easily. When I create a site, and give training on Wordpress for example, I often find that for a simple website I’m saying “you don’t need that functionality, that’s if you are using it to blog” or “remember to tick that box in that corner if you don’t want comments” and so on. To the average occassional content updater, Wordpress has lots of information to wade through in the administration panel.

To those who are ’scared of technology’ I want to be able to give them a site that they can intuitively be able to create their content easily and quickly without the need to navigate through lots of different menus and become confused if they click on the wrong area. It makes sense to use a tool which they can easily use 100 percent rather than having a tool which they will only use a small amount of it’s capabilities. Hopefully, also they will keep the site updated on a regular basis by adding new features and content. This is where the beauty and simplicity of sNews can really help the person who is designated to update the content on a website.

Continue reading “sNews - an easy and simple web publishing tool for non profit organisations” »

MODx, the most promising CMS of the year!

MODx wins the Most Promising CMS of the year 2007! This is a great achievement for the MODx team! Congratulations!
Read the celebration news from the MODx team.

Continue reading “MODx, the most promising CMS of the year!” »

Snack Attack

The Media Snacker Respect meme started by Jerimiah Owyang is now at my blog courtesy of Beth Kanter who tagged me. I’m not the biggest fan of meme’s but this one did make me stop and think as it’s made me aware of our shift into how we’re using social media tools to get our information snacks compared to using a newspaper or other traditional media for example.

Continue reading “Snack Attack” »

Netsquared coming to the UK

A new UK initiative for web-enabled social innovation began last week with a discussion to set up Netsquared in the UK, loosely based on the US Netsquared conference and community, which has now led to a host of meetups and other activities through which tecchies and activists find common cause and do good stuff for social benefit.
Read the full story at David Wilcox’s Designing for Civil Society website.

Continue reading “Netsquared coming to the UK” »

Using Twitter for conferences and consultation

I first met Tim Davies, whilst completing the 31 Days to a Better Blog challenge and also on Twitter. He regularly writes about his work in young people’s participation, non-profit technology and social change on his blog site.

Whilst completing the challenge, and connecting with other new friends also doing the challenge tasks, I learn’t about how others were using Twitter to a new level at conferences. I now use some of the learning I discovered in being able to participate in new ways with events using Twitter as my tool to be able to connect with others even if I am located on the other side of the globe.

Last week Tim wrote an article on his blog about using Twitter as a tool for texting and consultation at a recent conference to collect and share instant feedback throughout the event direct from people’s mobile phones.

On Tims blog he wrote about how he used Twitter at the conference for feedback:

“We set up a conference twitter account, and asked delegates to follow our account via mobile phone (by sending two sign-up text messages).
Throughout the event we were able to send instant text messages to all delegates - letting them know about what was coming up next, and inviting feedback. And delegates were able to text in their reflections, questions and feedback - with their views instantly appearing on the ‘twitter wall’ projected up on the main room, and on tickers running along the top of each powerpoint presentation being given.”

Tim also wrote about how twitter can be used for consultation and participation. Do head over to Tim’s Blog for the full article where you can read the fully story and also download a briefing paper for using Twitter at conferences. Don’t forget to check out his other articles too, especially the new series of simple social media sheets he’s created.

Twitter is one of my favourite networking tools, and I hope to see it being used more widely for conferences, events, participation and consultations here in the UK further.

Continue reading “Using Twitter for conferences and consultation” »

Will organisations use Facebook here in the UK?

Newspapers and radio seem to be covering the growth of Facebook almost daily, the social utility networking tool which enables you to connect with friends and join in with interest groups.

How many voluntary and community organisations here in the UK are using Facebook as a tool to connect and share good practice with others?
Paul Webster from the ICT Hub has been pondering how we can get more involvement and participation with social media and networking tools amongst the nonprofit sector here in the UK. I look forward to seeing his ideas as they unfold.
Later in this article, there’s a useful link to a new group especially for nonprofit organisations using Facebook in the UK.

I use Facebook to connect with like minded colleagues and old friends and also as a resource to ‘micro-blog’ useful news and websites of interest. I wrote about my early experiences of Facebook in an article back in August which has some useful links to adopting tools like Facebook within your organisation.

Yesterday, the Newsweek website published an article about Facebook-ing Philanthropy - A viral application on the popular social networking site hints at the future of giving. It details the growth in nonprofits using Facebook as a way to reach and connect with supporters using Facebooks ‘Cause’ application.

Continue reading “Will organisations use Facebook here in the UK?” »