VIEW
Independent Social Affairs magazine for community/voluntary sector www.viewdigital.org Issue 32, 2015
INSIDE:
COMMUNITY
Contributors include: Barry Adams Harry Reid Martina Chapman Sophie Mullen Una Murphy Claire Savage
GOES DIGITAL
An indepth look at how third sector is making use of a technological revolution
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A group of people from the community/voluntary/business sector who attended a recent VIEWdigital training workshop in Belfast, with VIEWdigital co-founder Una Murphy, far left, and Jennifer Jones, from the University of the West of Scotland, far right
Why VIEW believes a debate on use of digital technology is vital for community/voluntary sector By Brian Pelan, editor, VIEWdigital
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ack in the 1990s, I use to work as a stone sub editor and news pages were made up on photographic paper and pasted onto boards by printers. Fast forward to 2015 and VIEW is edited and designed on a computer. I can produce the magazine anywhere in the world and with a few clicks, the content is published online in a matter of minutes. The community/voluntary/charity sector in Northern Ireland has embraced the digital age with mixed results. A few far-sighted organisations have equipped themselves with the latest digital technology and the results of their investments are there for all to see. But sadly, budget or the lack of a healthly budget, means that a lot of organisations fail to or are unable to utilise the technology available. It’s high time, we believe, that the entire sector started a serious debate on
how best to embrace digital technology. That will entail the organisations coming together more to see how they can avail of the latest technology and to learn from experts already in the field. One of the key aspects also of digital is in communications. I believe that organisations must seize the moment and decide on how they best want to get their message and campaigns across to the wider public. If you are only half-heartedly using Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress, Twitter, Youtube, etc, you are holding back the growth of your organisation. The purpose also of this publication and other themed editions is to highlight key issues which involve us all. Our training workshops on the use of digital technology shows our serious commitment to upskilling the community/voluntary/charity sector. I hope you enjoy this issue and that it informs your use of digital technology. A big thanks also to all who contributed to ‘Community Goes Digital’.
Editorial
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igital has become the buzzword of this decade. Everything has to be digital, and we all have to become digitally empowered citizens. Few people ever stop to think about what all this digital malarkey actually means. We’re so caught up in the hype surrounding digital technologies, we can’t see the wood from the trees. This is especially true in the community and voluntary sector. “We have to go digital!” some poor board member proclaims, having read an alarmist article in a publication about how lagging behind in digital is dangerous. But those articles have themselves been written by people with, at best, a cursory understanding of digital technologies and their rightful place. The pro-technology propaganda emerging from Silicon Valley is mostly to blame for this. The technology entrepreneurs there fervently proclaim the emancipating powers of digital, evoking images of a techno-utopia where citizens are armed with smartphone apps and social networks that unencumber their chores and enhance every aspect of their daily lives. So eager are we to believe that there is a singular solution to all our woes, we eagerly lap up the disinformation emerging from the techno-fetishists, and we rarely stop and think about what technology can actually do for us – and what it does to us. I work in the technology sector, and my entire livelihood depends on technology. Without digital technologies, I would be unemployed – and unemployable, I reckon.Yet I am not an uncritical proponent of technology. In fact, I want to warn you about digital technologies. First of all, we need to realise that
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VIEW, the online publication for the community/voluntary sector in Northern Ireland
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Guest editor Barry Adams urges the community/voluntary sector ‘to understand what problems digital can solve and where it fits in to your existing processes and structures’
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much of the technology cheerleading emerges from a camp that has strong vested interests in seeing digital dominate every part of our lives. We don’t necessarily trust the petrochemical industry’s proclamations about fossil fuels, so why are we so tamely accepting the edicts from Silicon Valley about the power of technology? These people are making billions from digital, so of course they want us to welcome even more tech in to our jobs and homes.
child poverty. A website will not make domestic abuse disappear overnight. Self-driving cars will not eradicate climate change. We need to step away from technological ‘solutionism’ and adopt digital wisely, and in the right contexts. In the final analysis, digital technologies are just another tool to be wielded with thought and foresight. When handled appropriately, digital tech can truly serve the greater good – whereas now, it mainly serves the interests of Silicon Valley’s neoliberal capitalists.
Secondly, despite the techno-utopian ravings from Silicon Valley ‘thought leaders’, technology does not serve purely to liberate us. Digital tools are not released in a vacuum – they are made part of established systems and structures which are at least as adept at integrating these technologies as the average citizen is. Technology can just as easily become a burden and a tool for oppression. Lastly, we need to accept that complex problems are not solved with simple digital solutions. A single app will not solve
For any organisation to utilise digital tech properly, you need to understand what problems it can solve and where digital can fit in to your existing processes and structures. In some cases digital can replace established methods, but nearly always it will serve primarily to augment what you are already doing. Evolution, not revolution.
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Lastly, we need to accept that complex problems are not solved with simple digital solutions. A single app will not solve child poverty . . .
• Barry Adams is the founder of Polemic Digital – an SEO consultancy based in Belfast
Should you opt for crowdfunding?
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With innovation charity Nesta predicting that crowdfunding could be worth £4.7 billion to UK charities in 2016 and statutory funding stalling or being cut, digital communications consultant Harry Reid examines if it can be a potential lifesaving part of a voluntary organisation’s funding efforts
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ndiegogo sounded to me like a really bad Eurovision act the first time I came across the moniker about five years ago. Yet rather than a nul points scoring group of Norwegian would-be hipsters, checking it out online I discovered it was something called a crowdfunding platform that had been launched in 2008. Back in 2010, when I first heard the term, I knew nothing about crowdfunding. As an independent fundraising consultant I was initially curious in a fairly lukewarm kind of way, suspicious of any gimmicky internet-based get ‘rich’ quick fundraising cure-alls. Yet by taking the time to become familiar with, and analyse, a wide range of crowdfunding initiatives on Indiegogo, and then over time on other similar sites such as Kickstarter, Peoplefund.it and Buzzbnk, as they launched and matured, I quickly became in turn intrigued, fascinated, impressed and then a dedicated fan – although like every other effective method of fundraising it is an actor in the drama not a one person show. My enthusiastic advocacy wasn’t based on a belief that this digital communication channel - specialising in enabling charities; community groups; artists and others to raise serious money for projects of a genuinely innovative nature - could replace the traditional fundraising mix used by not for profit organisations to underwrite their work. Rather, it became clear that crowdfunding campaigns, on Indiegogo
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and the myriad of other similar sites, can, if done well, significantly augment income from the tried and tested blend of charitable money raising activities. Put simply, crowd funding has the potential to be another arrow for the
embracing crowdfunding as a part of your fundraising toolbox, I suggest that you;
fundraising bow in a charity’s quiver just like applications to charitable trusts and statutory bodies; business support through corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes; money from the public through events, supporter schemes, legacies and the rest, and increasingly, the rewards from entrepreneurial trading through social business models. However, before rushing head-long to throw a crowdfunding initiative together, note well the caveats mentioned above, i.e. that done well, a crowdfunding campaign has the potential to raise serious money for specific projects. Instead, if you’re serious about
free – it requires significant investment in staff or volunteers’ time, and that they need to both know what they’re doing in terms of mounting an engaging, timetabled, nuanced campaign and working to a detailed plan agreed organisation-wide as a time-limited bookended priority. Additionally resources need to be marshalled and invested in creating professional campaign materials – excellent audio-visual material in particular, such as live action video or animations, are
One: Understand that done well, crowdfunding is not
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Although like every other effective method of fundraising it is an actor in the drama not a one person show
VIEW, Issue 32, 2015
essential but require specialist expertise to produce,
Two: Study and become familiar with the myriad of crowdfunding platforms, learn from what others have done on them to gain success or experience failure.
Three: plan your campaign by setting agreed start and end dates, ensuring that once up and running you can clearly and concisely convey your messages in terms of what you want the funding for, why your envisaged work deserves support, who will benefit and how. Attention spans are short on the eyeball competitive web, so you need to be punchy in how you inform and indeed entertain. Crucial too is the need to communicate
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what people will get by way of reward for specific amounts of donation, as is factoring in your costs for fulfillment of each aspect of such offers.
Four: Treat your crowdfunding campaign as the temporary flagship in your digital armada, complimentarily working in consort with your website content; social media feeds; Instagram or other photo-sharing output; material on your YouTube channel and in your regular e-zines. Additionally, while your crowdfunding campaign is live, if you don’t already, consider running a dedicated blog on the likes of Tumbl and putting out a podcast through Sound Cloud or similar.
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Finally, while space here allows only a broad skim of the considerations, my central piece of advice is that while a DIY approach is ok for a small scale crowdfunding effort to support for instance a sponsored event you are running anyway, that investment to bring in on a short-term basis external expertise to help advise and co-ordinate is, if you can afford it, worth it to make any major crowdfunding initiative a success. With rewards of £100,000 plus being realistic targets for imaginatively conceived and skillfully mounted campaigns, investment in consultancy time can bring a multiple return. To ensure you don’t fall for the type of ‘consultants’ that ask to borrow your watch then bill you for telling you the time, seek the support of an individual or agency with the skills; knowledge and understanding to assist your crowdfunding effort.
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Clockwise from above: Some of the participants at the recent Community Journalism conference in Cardiff; VIEWdigital co-founder Una Murphy who addressed the conference; US academic Dan Gillmor and Kathryn Geels, programme manager for Destination Local, which was set up by Nesta
VIEWdigital selected to help media research into community journalism
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IEWdigital community media has been selected to help the Media Innovation Studio, UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) in its research for Nesta on community journalism. It follows an invitation to VIEWdigital to speak at the recent ‘What Next for Community Journalism’ conference at Cardiff University. The conference was organised by the Centre for Community Journalism (C4CJ) at the university. The Twitter hashtag #CJ15 was used during the conference. Keynote speaker Dan Gillmor an American academic and author of ‘We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People’ and ‘Mediactive’ told VIEWdigital: “Community journalism should improve the community you live in, otherwise why bother?” A new report by Nesta ‘Where Are We Now’, which looks at community journalism in 2015 was launched at the conference. Read more about the report here: http://bit.ly/1FbCp7B In 2012, Nesta published the first in-depth look at the community media sector. It showed how technology had eroded the traditional newspaper industry and had also enabled new entrants to create and distribute local news and information at a low cost.
Nesta’s latest report stated: “Our research shows a sector that plays an increasingly important role in supporting the information needs of communities...across a number of platforms, produced by a mixture of committed volunteers and entrepreneurial journalists, driven by a desire to reflect and enhance the communities in which they live and work.” Top facts about the community journalism sector include: • Nearly three quarters of publishers (72%) have joined in or supported a local campaign in the last two years. Nearly half (42%) have started their own campaigns. • The growth of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets is a key driver in the rise in community media consumption. • Seven out of ten community media publishers identify their work as a form of active community participation, more than half define it as local journalism and more than half see it as an expression of active citizenship. The ‘What Next for Community Journalism’ conference heard that proposals for a more open BBC will include talks with community media publishers to help local journalism grow and thrive as a way of upholding local democracy and accountability.
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Training Calendar
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Martina Chapman Comment
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By Martina Chapman
he digital landscape has changed over the last ten years, but has the community sector’s approach to engagement changed to make the best use of these new opportunities? Time spent online has doubled over the past decade, with internet users spending over 20 hours online per week, up from just under 10 hours in 2005. Ofcom Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes report for 2015 (http://bit.ly/1F3XPjb) gives a detailed picture of how adults across the UK are
using digital technology. It is the 10th anniversary of this report and provides an interesting glance back at a decade of digital. 2014 saw the biggest increase in time spent online in a decade, with internet users spending over three and a half hours longer online each week than they did in 2013. The use of smartphones and tablets are helping to drive this increase (two bits of digital kit that didn’t exist 10 years ago) with 66 percent of adults using smartphones and most using them to go online while nearly four in ten of us use tablets to go online. Nearly half of mobile phone users are
making calls online and uploading videos and photos. Social media is not just the domain of the young. Nearly three quarters of all adults have a social media profile and 81 percent use social media everyday. Half of people aged 55-64 have a social media profile. Watching video clips online is growing in popularity and 40 percent of people are now watching video clips on their mobile phones. • Martina Chapman is Director of Mercury Insights and a Faculty Member of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) Academy
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A new IT chapter opens for Bernard Novel: Bernard Green at one of his Got IT? sessions with Omagh Library staff member Belinda Mahaffey
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hen 66 year old Omagh man, Bernard Green, stepped into his local library for a free Got IT? session, little did he know where that journey of discovery would take him. His three free IT sessions with staff in Omagh Library focused on basic ICT skills which led to him being awarded the County Tyrone 2015 Essential Skills Learner of the Year. Bernard gained so much confidence from the Got IT? programme in Omagh Library that he went on to enrol with the South West College to pursue further ICT
learning. As a result of this, he attained the Essential Skills award that recognised and celebrated outstanding achievement in literacy, numeracy and ICT at a ceremony held at Queen’s University Belfast. Bernard said: “It has been 50 years since I left school and I know I have a lot to learn with computers, but I am happy with my progress so far and have gained much from my experience. Not only have I made new friends, my tutors are excellent. I am planning to take a course in English or Maths or maybe even both when I
finish this course, now I have started learning again.” Bernard called into Omagh Library to show the staff his award. He said that without the free Got IT? programme in the library, he would never have achieved this and he thanked the staff for helping him to take those first important steps on his learning journey. • More information is available on the Libraries NI website at www.librariesni.org.uk
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Producing yawn-inducing content is the route to digital oblivion . . . How can charities, community groups and other not for profit organisations best embrace and harness the full potential benefits that digital platforms, tools and content offer? We asked digital communications specialist Harry Reid to share his 10 top tips
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Become informed – The core of ‘the digital thing’ is developing a sensibility about what each of the range of digital tools, when well deployed, can achieve. Make informed choices about which combination best serves your organisation’s aims.
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Operate strategically – Consider which digital channels you have the resources, particularly in staff or volunteers’ time, to exploit well. Don’t, for example, start an organisational blog that ends up sounding like a forgotten relative invited only to funerals.
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Think multimedia – Reflect on how you incorporate each still and video images, audio content and written text into your selected digital channels. Timetable the production and release of each and plan synergy between them.
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Embed interactivity – digital channels offer so much more than a means to publish or broadcast your views, information and general content. To make effective use of such extraordinary opportunities, organisations must build interactivity into their digital
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communication planning and operational activity.
Design holistically – the sum of an organisation’s digital offerings must be developed strategically and designed in an integrated way to be effective. Too often digital communication channels are adopted by organisations in an ad hoc way, with no reference to each other.
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Be human – nobody convinced anyone about anything by speaking in the drone-tone style of the policy wonk. Make sure your digital content reflects and is coloured by human experience and human faces that your readers and viewers can identify with.
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Cultivate creativity – the greatest digital crime is being boring. Producing dull, turgid, yawn-inducing content is the route to digital oblivion. To be digitally effective, an organization must ensure that staff and volunteers are encouraged to put forward creative and innovative ideas.
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Develop distinctiveness – An organization to be effective needs to develop a distinctive ‘voice’. Not-for-profit organisa-
tions that will thrive in the digital age will be those with clear visions, something valid to say and with the distinctive digital voice to say it.
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Eschew gimmicks – There are constantly new possibilities popping up but organisations do not need to chase every digital hare that starts running.
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Practice discrimination – Do not bombard your audiences with an avalanche of material. Remember less is more.
• Harry Reid’s forthcoming book ‘Digital Head, Human Heart : The Alchemy Of Fraternity, Storytelling & Empathy Based Communication’ will be published by the Kilby Press in e-book and print editions in June 2016.
Harry is available to not for profit organisations on a consultancy basis (Tel 07717 582208 email harryreid53@gmail.com) and in the coming months will be tutoring a number of masterclasses on a range of digital themes.
Is charity sector being left behind in digital skills race? VIEW, Issue 32, 2015
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By Sophie Mullan
founder partner of Go ON UK the UK's Digital Skills Alliance – Lloyds Bank UK has spelt out the ‘state of digital’ in Northern Ireland but it’s latest Business Digital Index makes grim reading. While Northern Ireland in many respects is becoming a leader in its own right in the digital sector, with technology giants making their home here, sadly the opposite seems to be true, according to this year’s Digital Skills Index, looking at SMEs and charities across the UK. It would be easy to mistake Northern Ireland as a digitally skilled nation. Belfast is rated as number two in the UK in terms of average tech company turnover, and we have the fastest growing “knowledge economy” in the UK. The reality is that Northern Ireland is sitting at the bottom of the digital skills league and has done for two years running now. It is a particularly issue for the community and charity sector. Throughout the UK more than half of all charities remain without basic digital skills. Zoom into charities in Northern Ireland and the situation becomes bleaker, because instead of data, you see a large hole, with a subnote in the Business Digital Index explaining that researchers could
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clear is a blatant need in Northern Ireland and in the charity sector as a whole for support and training to help increase the skills and confidence of its workers. That is why VIEWdigital community media social enterprise has published a special edition of VIEW social affairs magazine focusing solely on the issue of ‘the community sector goes digital.’ We applaud the initiatives taken to help the community and charity sector ‘go digital’ and we are committed as a community media social enterprise to do our part. VIEWdigital will hosting ongoing practical digital and media training by industry experts. On pages 8 and 9 you will see our calendar of upcoming training coming up. Alternatively if you need someone to sit down beside your staff and provide bespoke support, we can also help. Northern Ireland is now providing a home to digital giants, and we can’t let our community groups, charities and SMEs get left behind in this great digital race.. Sources:
not obtain a contactable representative sample for the charity sector in Northern Ireland. The question is are we too disconnected as a sector from each other, let alone the internet? It is unclear. What is
• http://bit.ly/1E2OwSv
used via an online platform to enable individuals with experience of going through the process of welfare reform to record their experiences. Digital Fact Checking will be incorporated on the Advice NI website so
that people can submit and ask questions, access an archive of previous answers and flag up false or misleading information. Advice NI will have a panel of experts responding and submitting information onto the platform. The Crowd Wise tool will be used in small group discussions. Advice NI will bring to the table a number of issues which will then be discussed, votes taken and then prioritised and agreed. Interactive real time voting tools will be used during the discussions to help make decisions.. Advice NI will use Citizen Reporting, Advice NI to highlight the impact of the welfare changes with real time discussion of issues, sharing of information and mapping of impact.
• http://bit.ly/1yLwtZE
• http://bit.ly/1NGD6qt
Advice NI taps into technology to help track welfare changes T
By Una Murphy
HOUSANDS people in Northern Ireland are set to understand welfare changes better though an advice service using digital technology. Belfast-based independent advice organisation Advice NI has received funding from the Big Lottery backed Building Change Trust to help citizens understand changes to welfare. The Ushahidi Crowdmapping platform software puts people’s voices on a map, to enable Advice NI to gather geospatial data that will track the impact of Welfare Reform and identify hotspots across NI where people are being affected. A Citizen Report Card tool will be
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Barry Adams Comment How to avoid drowning in digital data
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t’s easy to get lost in the digital forest. With so much pressure to ‘do digital’, it can be hard to know where to begin, and – more importantly – how to measure whether your digital efforts are actually working. What sets digital apart from most classic marketing and communications channels is the level of accountability. Whereas with the classic channels you can, at best, make some educated guesses about how effective a particular campaign is, with digital channels almost everything can be measured. Data is gathered about every click, every pageview, every app screen. This is also digital’s greatest drawback: there’s such a vast amount of data available, decision-makers can drown in numbers without ever arriving at any useful conclusion. To make sense of the mountains of data that digital channels can offer you, you first need to have a clear picture of what you want to measure. It’s easy to lose yourself in endless graphs and spreadsheets, so you need to have a laser-like focus on the right numbers and ignore everything else. The best approach is to start with your target audience. In the end, digital channels are just another means to communicate with your audience. It’s still about people, that has never changed.Your digital analytics therefore need to start with the people you want to talk to. Clearly defining your target audience is a crucial first step.You can use personas to define your target audience, making sure to detail how they use digital technologies such as the web and smartphone apps, and how this aligns with your organisation’s efforts. If you’ve concluded your target audience doesn’t use iPhone apps, and you are developing such an app, there’s something amiss. When you have a clear understanding of your digital audience, you can start
setting goals for your digital activities. If, for example, your audience uses Facebook abundantly, you can use that social network as a cornerstone of your online marketing, and set goals for engagement levels with your Facebook page. Each goal needs to have clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) attached to them. In the example of Facebook, the KPIs for the ‘Increase Facebook engagement’ goal would be the amount of Likes on your page, and the amount of interactions with your posts – likes, comments, shares, clicks, etc. Measuring these KPIs is something you’ll want to do on a regular basis. A monthly report tends to serve that purpose. Ensure you’re reporting on the right goals, and ignore the numbers that don’t align with your KPIs. One of the cardinal sins of digital analytics is to look at numbers in aggregate. A total figure tells you very little. Instead, drill down in to the data by segmenting your audience, and identify
how each interacts with your digital channels. How do smartphone users interact with your website? Does this differ from how desktop PC users interact with your site? Do visitors from Facebook spend more or less time on your site than visitors from Google search? By looking at the numbers in defined segments – which come pre-configured in most analytics packages like Google Analytics – you will get a clear picture about how each of your digital channels contributes to your online success. Every monthly report should conclude with actionable recommendations. Digital analytics enable you to find out what works and what doesn’t. Then it’s up to you to do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t. That, more than anything, sets digital apart from classic marketing channels. • Barry Adams is the founder of Polemic Digital – an SEO consultancy based in Belfast
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Older peoples’ lives transformed with Lottery-funded iPad project John and Lavinia Beck, who have both completed one of the iPad classes at Ardrigh Fold in Glengormley, with Sarah Lynch, centre, Supporting Active Engagement Co-ordinator. Image: Nigel Hunter
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By Claire Savage
n award-winning digital project from Advice NI is helping older people in the community get online, with over 300 people taking part since 2013. Financed by the Big Lottery Fund, Supporting Active Engagement will be ongoing over the next few years, teaching people in sheltered housing and folds how to use the internet via iPads. Each strand of the project runs over 12-weeks, with one hourly session per week, and also focuses on helping elderly people access information about their rights and entitlements. Indeed to date, the project has identified more than £400,000 in unclaimed benefits and has empowered many people to use online services throughout Northern Ireland. The digital inclusion project also received a prestigious Star Award from the national adult learning organisation, Aontas, in February this year, when it was named overall Ulster winner 2015. As a volunteerled initiative, Advice NI is subsequently keen to recruit more volunteers to assist
with the sessions, so they can deliver them in even more locations. Sarah Lynch, who co-ordinates the training, says: “We’ve worked everywhere in Northern Ireland so far – from Portstewart to Enniskillen. Our volunteers love it because it’s really good fun.” Very much a hands-on experience, the Supporting Active Engagement project starts simple and always progresses at the speed of the slowest learner. There’s no need for prior knowledge of computers or iPads, and the team starts from scratch, beginning with how to switch on the digital devices. “It’s about encouraging confidence and making people feel less socially isolated,” says Sarah. “We start by explaining what a tablet is and what the internet is. We then go online and teach them what a website is. It’s all very relaxed.” One fold coordinator says: “Our residents, Arthur, Lawrence and Dominic have all now purchased iPads and sit in the common room in the evenings making use of the Wi-Fi. Arthur’s grandchildren have him Skyping and Facebooking and call him
‘cool granda Arty’ now. He’s also a whizz at emailing, and even pays bills online – all thanks to the classes.” Meanwhile, a resident who’s benefitted from the programme, adds that “the tutors are very helpful and patient”, while another says: “I enjoyed the course very much and look forward to getting my own tablet.” A fold coordinator further reports that: “As a result of learning (about) the tablet she (a resident) was able to locate her niece, who had been given up for adoption, and she’s had a wonderful reunion as a result.” As an organisation which champions the rights of the individual, Advice NI previously identified the need for their project as more and more services moved online. In effect, this rendered them inaccessible to many older people, making them at risk of missing out on important benefits and support. With positive feedback from those involved, Advice NI has more sessions planned for the future and hopes many more volunteers are inspired to join them.
Charity using digital to get its story across VIEW, Issue 32, 2015
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acMillan Cancer Support head of digital Amanda Neylon will be among the speakers at the Digital DNA conference in Belfast. Ms Neylon will set out the digital technologies which have helped her organisation get its story across at a Digital Transformation in the 3rd sector workshop. Cloud computing, digital storytelling and engaging an audience online are among the issues to be explored. “We engage with over two million people through social channels”, said Ms Neylon, who has been with MacMillan Cancer Support for the last four years. Social media is now “fundamental” to all charities, she added, as it provides “a great communication, fundraising and awareness raising medium”. Ms Neylon will be speaking at
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at www.digitaldna.org.uk VIEWdigital community media co-founder Una Murphy will be speaking about digital media skills training for community, voluntary and social enterprise groups at the workshop. Digital DNA Head of Sales & Marketing John Bell said: “Falling cash donations, the rising popularity of debit transactions and the increased pressure on the third sector due to declining public services point firmly towards a future of change for charitable organisations”.
the Digital DNA conference on October 15 at Titanic Belfast. Further details can be found
• To have a look at how MacMillan Cancer Support uses Twitter follow this link: “It can be hard to know what to say or do when someone has cancer. Often all they need is a hug http://t.co/IRQ1Z7ggEM pic.twitter.com/WaNeqJUXQB — Macmillan Cancer (@macmillancancer) July 14, 2015 ”
Why it’s never too old to go online
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xploring the world of the internet at your fingertips is a lot easier than you think. Those of you who have never been online could be missing out on easy access to information and education as well as consumer savings. As government and industry expand ever faster into digital-only services, the Digital Inclusion Unit within Digital Transformation Service of the Department of Finance and Personnel continues to promote a digitally inclusive society through a range of projects to help digitally excluded people get online and improve their web knowledge and skills. The Go ON NI programme provides free training, awareness sessions, displays, and roadshows throughout Northern Ireland with events such as ‘Spring on Line week’ (which includes Silver Surfers Day) and also ‘Get on Line’ week in October. These events raise digital awareness and promote the benefits of accessing the internet for everyday tasks such as keeping in touch, accessing public services, getting healthy, saving money, job-hunting, or for just having fun.
With events like these happening across NI, more and more people have been inspired to get and stay online. As the oldest participant at one of the events was 90 years old – it is never too late to get started. Go On NI works in partnership with organisations such as LibrariesNI, Business
in the Community, Supporting Communities NI, and also works closely with Go ON UK. Since its creation in 2011, the number of citizens in NI accessing the internet has increased by 13 percent and the 2014 target of 78 percent has been surpassed. By working in these partnerships, Go ON NI can offer free services to assist community organisations by • Setting up a group email/website • Assist community involvement in the Digital age • Providing advice and information and awareness sessions • Providing training and factsheets If you or any of your family members, friends or community groups need some IT assistance, you can find out more by checking out www.nidirect.gov.uk/go-on-ni or by visiting your local library or www.librariesni.org.uk for free Got IT, Go On courses and much, much more.
• The Digital Inclusion Unit can be contacted by email future@dfpni.gov.uk or telephone 02890 823138.
All aboard the Digital Express VIEW, Issue 32, 2015
www.viewdigital.org
Page 17
Top of the list of human beings at risk of what fluent policy-speakers call ‘digital exclusion’, are disabled people. Siobhan Cruickshank visits the HQ of Digital Express to find out about the organisation’s efforts to ensure that people with disabilities have the opportunities to be masters of their own digital destiny
I
wasn’t expecting this. A room full of paper. Quantities and varieties of paper hinting at a semi-religious fetish with the stuff. I suppose I’d presumed that my visit to a digital project would bring me face to face with shiny tech of a bewilderingly capital T variety. Yet here, first impressions suggested, was a cathedral for the paper worshipper. Then, already off psychic balance, I weaved past Pisa-esque towers of magazines, shimmied around tables topped with oozing volcanoes of word processed and hand written pages, and then, gazing at the posters, maps and lists covering every inch of wall, I lost my footing, and dignity, by failing to slalom successfully around one too many tottering piles of books. Red faced, from my new vantage point on the floor, I spy the tech booty I had expected. In an uncluttered enclave, an iPhone 6 Plus winks at me as it charges from, what I recognise as, a 27 inch iMac. Under the table shared by this pair, a collection of boxed iPads lean against a trunk of electrical and connection leads of all kinds. At an adjacent unit an Apple TV box sits beside a wireless media drive in front of a projector and TV display. I nestle in the Harry Reid: As well as being safe harbour of a the Director of Development comfy sofa and listen of Digital Express, he also to a passionately runs an independent delivered rationale communications consultancy, for why Digital which offers a range of Express came into services, including; being 18 months ago. • Digital communication This is delivered by strategies the organisation’s Director of Development, Harry Reid, a role he fills part-time in tandem with his successful freelance digital communication training and consultancy business. “The nine person board that established Digital Express knew a number of key truths about the circumstances of disabled people,” said Harry. “The board also had a coherent analysis of how digital technology could be harnessed to challenge the unjust treatment that they all too frequently experience, that subtly, and not so subtly, limit their life chances. “Digital Express’s constitution requires that over half the board themselves have to be disabled people. The others are allies
who bring the experience from their positions within institutions like Queens University, the Community Foundation, Disability Action and the business community.’ ‘Digital Express is led by disabled people – such a constituency-steered situation would be far from uncommon, and pretty much expected, in the likes of women’s, ethnic minority or gay rights organisations – but it is sadly far from the norm in the disability field here.’ ‘It was clear to the founding board members, that lack of awareness of disabled people’s particular needs, arising from their physical, sensory, cognitive or hidden impairments, or from their mental health problems, meant that little of the mainstream community-based activity concerning digital skills acquisition was genuinely accessible to people with a disability. “Central to the guiding principles of Digital Express are twin planks that run contrary to this status quo. Firstly, that the organisation is very much in the business of enabling disabled people to acquire the skills to create digital content, and secondly, that both this emphasis on creative production, and the resulting material produced, in and of themselves, act as a challenge to the soft bigotry of low expectations concerning disabled • Campaign and public people and the more affairs strategies overt negative • Project development attitudes they are • One-day masterclasses routinely subject to‘. ‘The emphasis on digital content creation Enquiries to applies across the harryreid53@gmail.com spectrum of projects Mobile – 07717 582208 that form the meat of Digital Express’s Strategic Plan for the next five years that envisions initiatives that have been designed to address self advocacy; campaigning skills; creative expression; education and employment’. ‘More recently I was fortunate to gain a Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to deepen the knowledge base Digital Express can draw on by researching the potential of digital technology to change attitudes to disability held by both wider society and disabled people themselves. This involved visiting relevant community projects and academic institutions in New York, Boston, Cambridge and Montreal this summer, and undertaking a similar exercise in Norway and Iceland next February’.
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