ictconsortiumni - strategy

Objective 1

Can enough of the people targeted access this as a resource online - these would be the people would need it most.

How different is this from what’s already out there, we should tailor it to Northern Ireland e.g. using simple case studies.

Pen picture of what a basic office will need would be useful, including sources of cost effective resources.

Information must be independent.

Advice on simple solutions e.g. using FOSS will get organisations to a useful starting point

Objective 2

The directory contributors should be interviewed, not just going on reviews, as these can be abused - opinion was divided on this, some felt that it would be difficult for the ICT Consortium to ‘endorse’ contributors in any way.

It would be useful to find a list of suppliers who you could contact on the phone to get further feedback.

It would be useful to supplement this with a paper based catalogue, for those that don’t automatically look to the web.

Objective 3

Feelings were that this would work well and would be a useful resource which would work with your organisation, rather that doing a quick sell. The benefits of working within the sector and in touch with the needs of the sector would be crucial. Expertise would develop as the type of work provided is repeated with different organisations, e.g. ensuring that organisations get free broadband upgrades. This would help with the removal of duplication and wastage of time and resources.

A benefit of this would be that the people involved ‘belong’ to the groups involved. They could also be tailored to the groups specialisms.

The empowerment idea is key to the success and makes this very different.

There should be a means by which the e riders are monitored so that they continually adhere to the ethos

Issues which are being explored in England are e.g. certification of Circuit Riders, branding of those involved, and private companies using the opportunity as an additional means to sell their services.

Objective 4

It would be crucial to ensure that funders, larger steering groups, government bodies etc. are educated as to the goals and ethos of the strategy, particularly that IT is not just about buying equipment. These events and articles would help to get the benefits across to stakeholders.

Events would be useful as long as you can hook into people’s interest and show an immediate practical benefit to them.

Objective 5

The bite sized online training modules are very useful to get people interested by sorting what they would like an instant fix for. There is a large learning curve for people to get to Web 2.0 literacy, never mind Web 1.0. The web 2.0 education would need to be done at all ability levels across the sector, not just at the higher level.

Sensitivity must also be exercised when ‘pushing’ the ICT developments to organisations, to make sure you’re not scaremongering them into buying into this, or saying that this is the only right way. Instead it should be sold to them as one way of doing it with these benefits, and this is how you do it.