Chapter 6: Findings 6.3.12 Other ICT Observations When the use of ICT by Irish LVOs is examined at a micro level, other subtle differences can be found between them. Firstly, ICT development offers a distinguishable difference between each voluntary sector. Sporting organisations tend to develop technical applications or services with a ‘big bang approach’; they tend to identify a need or problem and deploy in an ad hoc manner, in an attempt to fix it, with a few rare exceptions. This quick fix approach to ICT was captured by the following statement. ‘If we have some problem in the club, that we think technology can help us solve, we give it a try and see how it works out.’ (JF, 2010)
Secondly, sporting organisations seem interested in experimenting with new technologies, before they have fully analysed the ramifications of using it and more importantly, consulting their members to ascertain their views on its usefulness. This would categorise this sector of voluntary organisation as an early adopter of ICT (Rogers, 2003). However, this innovative approach to ICT development often leads to half developed systems that are unusable or fully usable systems that are not needed by members. This problem was neatly encapsulated by one interviewee, who stated: ‘We have got into trouble in the past with our IT guy developing a website and registering it in the Czech republic, which made it unusable in Ireland, little knowledge in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing.’ (FOH, 2010)
Thirdly, little or no technical planning is commonplace in sporting LVOs, where a reactionary approach to technology is dominant. Community organisations tend to develop their technological solutions or services in phases, which allow them to create and roll out services in an iterative approach, which is better in terms of delivery, usefulness and sustainability. This planned approach may be attributable to their use of an external ICT expert for application development and service delivery. Also, as 210