Bagels & Bytes Meeting Notes – April 2015

This month we met at the lovely Frick Art & Historical Center, which now boasts an awesome new visitor center!  Our deepest thanks to Linda and the Frick staff for hosting us!  We will be back at the Frick for our next meeting on May 6.

Here are the notes from this month’s meeting:

• Upon asking attendees to reflect on their organization’s greatest present tech challenge, received these answers:
  • Doing things the same way all the time – always reactionary
  • Issues with proprietary content management system
  • Running remote meetings with board or staff
  • Social media usage – how to do it more effectively
  • Budgetary issues
  • No seat at the table
  • No tech plan
  • Need more buy in from staff, leadership and board
  • Utilization of volunteers for tech (what’s appropriate to let a volunteer handle vs. a staff member or vendor)
  • Managing tech volunteers
  • File storage, backup and recovery
• Social media tips
  • Always use a photo when posting
  • Use shorter URLs (convert with Bit.ly or similar tool)
• Lynda.com
  • Great for training videos on a wide variety of topics
• Microlending/microfinance orgs online
  • Oiko
  • Kiva Zip
• Event registration tools
  • Eventbrite.com
  • Showclix.com
• Books on tech planning
  • Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission, edited by Holly Ross, et al.
  • Wired for Good, by Jodi Podolsky
• Managing technology using volunteers
  • Always good to create a job description with specific skills and duties spelled out
  • Know what’s appropriate for a volunteer vs. a staff member vs. a vendor
  • Recognize when you really need to make the jump from tech volunteer to paid tech staffer
  • NTEN Staffing and Investments Report 2014
• Technology culture
  • Is a big challenge for many organizations
  • Sometimes fresh leadership causes a positive shift in a stale tech culture
  • How do you get people to realize the value of technology and that they really can’t do their jobs without adequate access to computing resources and data?
• UpPrize content
  • Visit Upprize.org for more details or email Rebecca Young at young@forbesfunds.org
  • Application process includes a two-minute video and is due April 15
• TechNow 2015 Conference
  • Leaked news of the big speakers, not yet announced to public
    • Afternoon keynote will be Cody Switzer, Senior Editor at the Chronicle of Philanthropy
    • Opening plenary will be Kenya Boswell, President at BNY Mellon Foundation and Matt Zieger, Executive in Residence, Innovation, Forbes Funds