HIGH TECHNOLOGY IN FUTURE BEE

Smaller, faster, better, cheaper, anytime, anywhere… the promises of ICT and technology, whoever you are, whatever you do. But what difference is it really making, what are those promises and why doesn’t it deliver?
An Anglo-Indian author once wrote, “Wisdom is to recognise what can be made better and make it better, and to recognise what can only be made worse and walk away.” But how does that fit with ICT?
What we want, what we really, really want. If you’ll forgive me misquoting the Spice Girls (bear with me, please), what do we actually want from our technology?
To be able to do our jobs effectively, economically and efficiently
To make a difference to the people we want to help
To do things better or to do better things
And on a more personal note, to enhance our life experience through communication and information. You can walk into any shop on the high street (or buy online), something small, funky, new, pretty and highly technical. But it doesn’t necessarily do the job. My phone might play MP3s, have a radio, camera and video player but all I actually want to use it for is to make and receive voice calls and send and receive text messages. Too much technology is overspecified, overcomplicated, hard to use and lets be frank, scares people senseless.
In non-profit technology, we have some fairly simple needs. Only the benefits, risks and drawbacks really matter. We need to be asking what difference will this make, what risks might arise through its use and what’s going to go wrong. Technology itself is pretty meaningless and fairly harmless. It’s the interaction with people which causes the problem.
The future is about people, applications, communication and access. We need access to an appropriate application of technology, enabling communication and knowledge sharing for people. Sounds obvious but it’s often ill considered when technology is planned. Too often the focus is technical (over specified), focused on an individual (the techie not the user or beneficiary) and the financial (how do we save a few pounds here).
ICT and technology planning must be outcomes focused. It must be about what the people NEED rather than want. It must be about access to information and communication easily and cheaply. And of course, we need some of those so-called ‘killer applications’ which justify the time, effort and investment. Words have lost their meaning when discussing technology. We talk about ubiquity, convergence, plug and play (ha! Doesn’t work), always on and ease of use. How many of those phrases are real when we use technology at work?
Not quite made it yet?
Technology has thrown up many great ideas and a lot of them simply haven’t made it. A fortunate few have benefited from all of these and they still have potential, but the wider application is missing.
E-publishing through websites and blogs – some community groups still aren’t in a position to manage websites, let alone get involved in the blogging revolution.
Data warehousing – information sharing across partnerships is a massive problem, from the technical considerations through mismatches of data types to the purely cultural of ‘it’s mine and you can’t have it.’
Broadband – if you can get it. Broadband is now widely available but there are still areas where it isn’t and websites and technology is now moving apace to make it difficult for those of us who do still (albeit occasionally) rely on dial up connections.
IT training – still too focused on individual programs. Don’t make me an expert on Microsoft Excel. Show me how to do the things I need to do in my job. I reckon 75% of us would get more out of a ‘hints and tips seminar’ relevant to our type of job (e.g. office administrator) than any other defined course. It is starting to happen…
Open source – too hard. At the moment. Aspects of open source work well and I wouldn’t be without my Firefox browser or my Apache webserver. Just don’t expect me to understand how they work or fix them when they go wrong.
Paperless office – enough said.
Handheld and mobile computing – getting there, but then how much do we want to let technology intrude into our everyday life?
As for the once famous promise of a computer in every home, well a lot of those are lying dormant under dustsheets and why do we need one all the time anyway?
What needs to happen?
There are some potential solutions to these issues or at least ideas of tackling them.
Knowing what we do and could do if technology was applied ‘to do things better’ and ‘to do better things’. Innovative uses of technology and ICT are fine as long as the plans are grounded and actually fit with the purpose.
Building a meaningful business case with tangible benefits. Knowing what we need, the impacts and resource needs behind it and the benefits that might arise alongside possible risks. It takes time but as the saying goes, ‘prior planning prevents pretty poor performance’.
Appreciating resource costs and measuring against value added or lost. Replacing a five year old computer system with new PCs and a new network might cost money but if it improves efficiencies (and let’s face it, probably staff morale) it’s worth it. What are the costs of NOT doing it?
Seeing technology as an enabler and not a separate function. Most of the more successful organisations see technology for what it can do rather than for what it is. Chief Execs or even humble trustees don’t have to understand the detail of technology (in the same way only my accountant fully understands my tax return) – simply the application, the benefits, risks and implications either way, to do or not to do it.
Seeing ICT as fundamental to success, as a friend not a foe, as a resource not a cost. It’s not a big scary monster. It’s not expensive. It doesn’t have to cause misery.
Developing an infrastructure which supports ICT in community organisations. And this is the nub of the future of technology in the non-profit sector. Support, infrastructure, access to information and advice and some idea of meaningful and appropriate use of ICT, far from the ‘pressure sales’ of suppliers with their own agenda. The development of a true partnership of suppliers, advisers and customers, with a strong leadership body as the glue between the three.
What’s already happening?
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Some of this is already happening.
Technology is being driven from a strategic perspective, both from national and local partnerships and within individual organisations.
Organisations of similar types are coming together to plan and develop applications and to share experiences (good and bad). It’s not always easy, or pretty, but we need to go through it to reach the benefits on the other side.
Applications (and support systems) are being driven and developed exclusively for the voluntary and community sector. Circuit riders and IT volunteers are a good example of the support systems. The preponderance of specific database systems are an example of the applications.
Access to quality, unbiased, focused, professional advice on technology issues, whether from individuals (circuit riders and consultants), telephone helplines (like the ICT Hub), web-based knowledgebases et al.
Technology is supporting monitoring and evaluation and helping to back up, as well as drive, outcomes management.
And finally, we are all coming round to the realisation that technology has to be needs driven by people and organisations, not wants driven.
What’s making the difference?
Technology is maturing, stabilising and becoming natural. Almost everyone under 30 used a computer at school. Few people under 50 haven’t used mobile phones. It’s becoming natural to all of us as we share our experiences with friends, colleagues and older relatives.
Organisations are starting to see applications (a database which can do this for our information management, a website which can share that for a particular group) rather than technology per se.
People are understanding impacts and benefits. If we want to make our information available on the web, it will cut out 90% of phone queries (more time to get on with other support) but will need time, effort and money to keep up to date.
Management is starting to understand the value. Serving information via the web 24/7 is a great benefit. Sure it costs money. The business case for it is X.
Meaningful investment and support are causing change and enabling the impact. Organisations which are prepared to spend resources are starting to reap the benefit within a realistic timescale. No one really promised technology would deliver a benefit tomorrow.
So to future impacts
Technology is promising much, and under the right management is starting to deliver.
Many of us will shortly have communication anytime, anywhere (but with an escape clause if we want it) – here’s a tip (use a different email address and mobile sim card when you want to stay out of contact). Of course you could just switch everything off!
Access to information becomes easier through the power of search (Google is getting everywhere). Technology gets more powerful, appropriately portable and does what its supposed to do (i.e. not crash). ICT actually becomes intuitive (but stops being too clever for its own good).
ICT ‘naturalises’ as people and organisations see applications not the grey boxes (I think of this as writing an article I can easily edit and print rather than using a word processor on a computer). Technology stops being clever and starts being smart.
And finally, that infrastructure supports ICT, through strategy, management, technical support and application planning. We are what we do and sometimes we need the outside environment to help us do that.
In the end Technology/ICT have a great future in the voluntary and community sector but will be fundamentally dependent on the right infrastructure and the right application. Here’s hoping…