Latest tools from Google

Head over to Beth Dunn’s Small Dots blog, where she updates us on the new version of the Google Apps (a suite of applications such as Gmail, Google Talk, Calendar and Google Docs), which has now been made easier for people to collaborate and use without the technical knowledge needed to get up and running with it all.
Also Beth highlights Rebecca’s recent posting on the Wild Apricot Blog about how Google Forms

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NTEN’s Love Your Techie Day!

NTEN have used Sproutbuilder in an innovative way for you to to send a special message to your favourite techie for their celebratory ‘Love Your Techie Day’ on February 14th. Find out more, and send your special message at the NTEN website today!

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Remember accessibilty when using widgets on your website

There’s been much excitement in the media during the past week about a new widget application called Sprout. It aims to be an easy to use Flash based interface with simple drag-and-drop features, to build live, interactive multimedia content that can easily be added to any web page. Once a user publishes a Sprout widget, it can be copied to any website in much the same way as an embedded YouTube video clip. If you make updates to your ‘Sprout’ when logged into your account, it will update on all of the websites you have embedded your homegrown sprout on. Quick and easy.

It’s still in closed beta stage currently, but you can sign up now ready for when it gets to public release.
I’m hoping that when it is fully available for a wider audience to use on their social networks and websites, that it makes amends with its lack of accessibility.

I ran a workshop for non-profits earlier this week on the topic of getting a website for organisations, focussing on many of the free or quick ways available to get an online presence easily. Web standards, usability and accessibility formed a large part of the workshop where I was able to demonstrate that many sites are either unusable or inaccessible to many of the people they aim to reach and work with.

So how could widgets like Sprout be improved to enable a wider audience to be able to access your message and communications? What’s the problem, it looks great on my screen?

The following is a really simple example of the how a websites accessibility and usability can be compromised when flash media widgets are used on a website.

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Google releases it’s Social Graph API

Google has released it’s new API (Application Programming Interface) graphing publicly available social connections on the web.
You can see more about the Social Graph API for developers or have a go at looking up your own public profiles and see who is connected to you at the Social Graph - My connections demo page.

(Want to understand more about what how API’s work? Last autumn, I discovered this simple explanatory video by Matt Dickman which is a great introduction for non-geeks into API’s.)

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The big picture - a site with great participation potential

I don’t usually write about my favourite websites, or websites that I think can really create ownership and participation with a big audience, but just yesterday a new website was launched that really deserves a mention.

The Big Picture is a project to create the biggest photo album in the West Midlands. Everyone can add their favourite pictures, with the innovation being the ease in which people can participate, sharing their photos and tell the stories behind them.

The project is being run by Arts Council England (West Midlands), supported by the BBC and will run until June 2008. Over the next six months, the project will aim to collect more than 95,000 individual images, which will be then used to create a giant, world record-breaking, photomontage of peoples stories and images of their life and locality.

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The basics of data portability

Data portability has been big news in the web tech world in recent weeks. If you want to understand more, there’s a great new article and easy to understand video explaining the basics on ReadWriteWeb showing DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix by Smashcut Media.

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Using social media to meet others before an event

Meeting people for the first time at events, conferences and job interviews for example can be tricky for some.
Chris Brogan has written a useful article with lots of helpful suggestions on how you can use social media to meet people.

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Using images in fundraising

Christine Martell of VisualSpeak has a wonderful screencast about how images were used in Beth Kanters online fundraising campaign. Some good tips and advice on how to use images, plus also a really great example of how screencasting can be used to present a subject.

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Should your organisation use social networking sites?

A useful guide to help you work out whether social networking sites can add value and benefit the work of your organisation. See the full article to help you decide at Techsoup - Should your organisation use social networking sites?.

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Women working in non-profit technology - are we visible?

A couple of days ago, Beth Kanter put a shout out to help her with a session she’s running at the forthcoming She’s Geeky Conference. Her session will be directed at women who might be working in the corporate or business sector and are thinking of switching to the nonprofit sector. Beth asked a series of questions including:

• What are the opportunities and challenges of being the techie in a nonprofit organisation?
• If you’re a techie in the nonprofit sector, how and why did you land in the nonprofit sector?

Head over to Beth’s article to see some interesting responses, you can add your comments there too, and I’d welcome any comments you may have too on my blog. I look forward to seeing the outcomes of the discussions that happen at the conference and hope to see events like this for women in technology over here in the UK one day soon.

Interestingly, the results of Web Design Survey which took place in April 2007. A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide.

As soon as the results were published I was keen to see the outcomes. I wasn’t surprised to see the low numbers of women responding to the survey, and have seen some great conversations about women in web design and also the nonprofit angle about these results unfolding.

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