Not one to get excited by new gadgets, late-adopter Ian Allsop still encourages a strategic approach to technology, especially if it fits under the bed.
One thing that has changed over my working life (which commenced with a paper round in 1988) is the increased use of technology to make our lives easier while at the same time making it more difficult. I can’t claim to be a great IT expert (though I did own a Spectrum in the early 80s) but have witnessed some epochal moments in techy history. For example, the brief flirtation with IT’s rebranding as ICT around the turn of the Millennium, which ended when lazy sub-editors complained about the reduction in easy headline opportunities that IT enabled (see above).
I have played the role of semi- Luddite and observed others get disproportionately excited about gadgets while waiting patiently to see if they work or will simply be consigned to the 8-track cartridge grave of gizmos. I saw Charity Finance IT columnist John Tate give a presentation about this once. He used a diagram (I think it was a pyramid) to demonstrate the different reactions people have to new technology. It ranged from those who rush out and embrace every new idea, to late-adopters (me) and even those who simply refuse to engage at all. However, I am not convinced that such graphically presented theories will catch on so I will give it a few more years before deciding how useful it is.
The other invaluable resource charting charities’ haphazard relationship with chips is Charity Finance’s annual IT survey, 2010 - results of which are out now.
A long-running theme has been the extent to which charities include IT as part of their strategic planning. That is, really placing an importance on how IT can help deliver objectives and not just be a tool to print stuff and make spreadsheets. I can well imagine IT consultants tearing their cables out at the news that the percentage of charities whose strategic plan includes references to IT has dropped to twothirds, while the number of trustee boards which include someone with IT expertise is down to a quarter. Given the ease with which my five-year-old uses a computer maybe there is a case for having schoolchildren as charity trustees.
Perhaps a renewed recent focus on funding and survival, and the fact that IT’s pace of change means you are forever painting the Forth Bridge (and the resultant repeated costs) mean that charities will never fully strategically embrace IT as the experts crave.
But IT is so engrained in modern life that ignoring it strategically is dangerous whatever size of operation you are. As an example, when I left Charity Finance and started taking on freelance work it was clear that even I needed to consider my IT strategy. I say I, but actually this was imposed upon me by the senior management. It was very important to my wife that the new computer we needed was compact so as not to take up much space in the front room and the new printer had to be wireless so it could be hidden away under the bed.
One area that some charities have really embraced as a means of engaging with both new audiences and existing ones in a different way is social media.
While the sheer volume of information available online can be overwhelming and make it harder for your cause to stand out, having a good website is essential. It needn’t be complicated. A project that runs something along the lines of “we designed and built a website, it worked, people looked at it a lot” should suffice. Therefore, the finding in the IT survey that charities appear to be less satisfied with their websites is interesting. Is it poor project management, bad service from web designers, or simply that we all expect a lot more whistles and bells these days?
The other finding that struck me from the survey was that the proportion of charities using a SaaS application has risen from 6 to 12 per cent. Nearly three-quarters haven’t even considered it – what are they thinking? Get your heads out of the sand, people. Though I should also point out that 100 per cent of the people writing this column didn’t even know what SaaS was until they googled it.
It is worth remembering that as IT powers effortlessly forward, the traditional ways of doing things don’t always die out and the future never maps out as we are led to believe by the experts, however Gates and his cartographers chart the view from their Windows. When I started at Charity Finance in 2001 there was a very real fear that magazines in their printed form would soon be obsolete. But that hasn’t happened. Unless my “late-adopter” stance has missed something and I have been talking to myself for the last 800 words.
(IT might featured in the May issue of Civil Society Finance magazine)
Ian Allsop was editor of Charity Finance magazine from 2004 until early 2009
