The usability MOT competition for charities closes tomorrow (26 Nov)
In support of World Usability Day on 12 November 2009, Cogapp (www.cogapp.com), the user experience and digital media company, has launched a competition for UK charities and environmental organisations. The prize is a day’s free website user-testing and usability consultancy designed to improve their website’s effectiveness. The competition closes 26 November – entrants must write a brief summary of how their organisation could benefit from this website usability MOT and send it to UXcomp@cogapp.com. The winner will be notified by 10 December.
25 November, 2009
16 November, 2009
Phlogs - the next step for User Generated Content
If you haven’t heard of it yet a “PHLOG” is a new idea from ipadio which allows the live streaming of any telephone call, from anywhere in the World, live to the internet. So one telephone call can appear:
Then she decided to “phlog” the whole walk for her supporters to listen to her real-time:
An interesting concept and there must be dozens of applications.. phlog a travelog, protest or a concert, use it for reportage of a meeting or a conference and post to twitter and feed it to you various sites as audio and text . You can provide customer service, post phone "podcasts" even run a radio station from the phone. It is an even more accessible way to create content than the web:
The Red Cross from the Indonesian Earthquake:
http://www.redcross.org.uk/standard.asp?id=98445
The Time to Get Equal Campaign from Scope:
http://www.timetogetequal.org.uk/phlogs
- 1. Inside your own website;
2. On fundraising websites such as BeMyCharity;
3. Inside your Facebook pages;
4. In Twitter;
5. The voice can be converted to text making it friendly to search engines and accessible; 6. As a text feed like an Instant Message board
“With the inspiration to look beyond just online sponsorship forms, charities can make their fundraising events truly interactive.”An example is Amanda Wilkie, a Mum who did The Playtex MoonWalk 2009. She started collecting sponsorship using BMC and used Twitter to spread the word and ask people to sponsor her. She has written a blog about the experience: http://bmy.typepad.com/
Then she decided to “phlog” the whole walk for her supporters to listen to her real-time:
“I will be recording messages and taking photos throughout my journey and thanks to this amazing technology and my new iphone they will post, LIVE, to my web page which will then link to Twitter! Most exciting of all...with each message, I can add my location and ipadio can 'geolocate' me and then put a virtual pin on my map, so you can see my progression throughout the whole 26.2 mile journey!”Amanda then recorded 23 short phlogs and images of her event which you can listen to at www.bmycharity.com/amandawilkie
An interesting concept and there must be dozens of applications.. phlog a travelog, protest or a concert, use it for reportage of a meeting or a conference and post to twitter and feed it to you various sites as audio and text . You can provide customer service, post phone "podcasts" even run a radio station from the phone. It is an even more accessible way to create content than the web:
“Any organisation large or small that has stakeholders that they need to reach can make use of ipadio to deliver their message. ipadio are working with disability charities whose service users find it difficult to attend conferences or get their voice heard because of mobility issues.. you only need a phone and a passcode and you can start broadcasting from anywhere.”To see how others are using ipadio visit www.ipadio.com/charity or click direct to the “channels” below to listen to broadcasts:
The Red Cross from the Indonesian Earthquake:
http://www.redcross.org.uk/standard.asp?id=98445
The Time to Get Equal Campaign from Scope:
http://www.timetogetequal.org.uk/phlogs
12 November, 2009
Free website usability MOT for charity / environmental organisation
In support of World Usability Day on 12 November 2009, Cogapp, the user experience and digital media company, is launching a competition for UK charities and environmental organisations. The prize is a day’s free website user-testing and usability consultancy designed to improve their website’s effectiveness. The competition opens on 12 November and closes 26 November – entrants must write a brief summary of how their organisation could benefit from this website usability MOT and send it to UXcomp@cogapp.com. The winner will be notified by 10 December.
The winning organisation’s website usability MOT will include four one-on-one in-depth user testing sessions with a targeted audience group, which can be observed. This is followed by a usability workshop and the development of a usability action plan on how to improve their website’s effectiveness. The testing is intended to take place at Cogapp’s two-room observation lab in Brighton although Cogapp will take a flexible approach depending on the chosen organisation’s location.
Pete Gale, head of user experience at Cogapp said: “It’s crucial for charity and environmental organisations to engage with their audience and clearly get their message across in every way, including online. Cogapp’s competition on World Usability Day has been set up to showcase how good usability can help charities and environmental groups improve their website’s effectiveness in engaging target audiences.”
World Usability Day is the initiative of the Usability Professional’s Association and has been celebrated globally every year since 2005 with a focus on helping to make the world work better and "Make Life Easy" and user friendly. It is focused on humanising technology and ensuring technologies are developed in a way that serves people first. It supports good usability research, development and practice.
Cogapp has delivered user research and consultancy for Macmillan Cancer Support, Arthritis Research Campaign, Transport for London, Business Link, The National Archives and the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games/London 2012 among many others. The team are members of the Usability Professionals Association and were awarded the Digital Media Award 2008 for User Experience work on the British Museum's website, having doubled unique visitors, visits and page views within six months.
World Usability Day, 12 November 2009
http://www.cogapp.com/
http://www.worldusabilityday.org/
The winning organisation’s website usability MOT will include four one-on-one in-depth user testing sessions with a targeted audience group, which can be observed. This is followed by a usability workshop and the development of a usability action plan on how to improve their website’s effectiveness. The testing is intended to take place at Cogapp’s two-room observation lab in Brighton although Cogapp will take a flexible approach depending on the chosen organisation’s location.
Pete Gale, head of user experience at Cogapp said: “It’s crucial for charity and environmental organisations to engage with their audience and clearly get their message across in every way, including online. Cogapp’s competition on World Usability Day has been set up to showcase how good usability can help charities and environmental groups improve their website’s effectiveness in engaging target audiences.”
World Usability Day is the initiative of the Usability Professional’s Association and has been celebrated globally every year since 2005 with a focus on helping to make the world work better and "Make Life Easy" and user friendly. It is focused on humanising technology and ensuring technologies are developed in a way that serves people first. It supports good usability research, development and practice.
Cogapp has delivered user research and consultancy for Macmillan Cancer Support, Arthritis Research Campaign, Transport for London, Business Link, The National Archives and the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games/London 2012 among many others. The team are members of the Usability Professionals Association and were awarded the Digital Media Award 2008 for User Experience work on the British Museum's website, having doubled unique visitors, visits and page views within six months.
World Usability Day, 12 November 2009
http://www.cogapp.com/
http://www.worldusabilityday.org/
09 November, 2009
Precedent Giveaway £30k of web development
*** UPDATE - Due to the number of requests received Precedent have extended the entry deadline to January 10th - see http://bit.ly/1822KQ ***
Precedent, a London based communications agency, is celebrating its 20th anniversary by giving away the equivalent of £30k of web development, training and strategy.
Originally Precedent planned to give away £20,000 of agency time, but their 70 strong team were so keen to get involved and volunteer that the prize is expected to rise to of well-over £30,000. The team are also looking to help the winning charity by getting involved in fundraising activities and the Media Trust have donated a bursary place on a communications course.
The competition is open to all UK registered charities. To enter charities need to post a short video onto YouTube explaining why their entry should win the prize and what difference it will make to them. The video (no longer than 3 minutes) can be anything from a mobile phone clip to a professional recording. It could be funny or hard hitting, it just needs to be memorable.
In “X Factor” fashion the entrants will be judged by a panel which includes Media Trust, Third Sector Magazine and Director and Artist Ian Emes (Duran Duran – The Chauffeur, Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon), Paul Hoskins, owner and founder of Precedent, Dean Russell, Head of Digital Marketing at Precedent and a polled vote from across the Precedent team.
Dean Russell commented “We know how passionate charities are about what they do, so we are hoping that this will create a showcase for them to promote themselves, whether they create the clip in-house, or ask their volunteers to do it for them.”
To enter, upload your video onto YouTube and send Precedent the link with details via the competition microsite (http://giveaway.precedent.co.uk). All videos will be showcased online, and a shortlist of 6 charities will be made when the competition closes November 27th, with a winner announced in December – just in time for Christmas!
As an additional bonus all the clips will be available online, adding to all the charities profiles and helping their search engine optimization. The winning charity will be promoted online throughout the project, with their website launch anticipated early in 2010.
To find out more go to http://giveaway.precedent.co.uk/
Precedent, a London based communications agency, is celebrating its 20th anniversary by giving away the equivalent of £30k of web development, training and strategy.
Originally Precedent planned to give away £20,000 of agency time, but their 70 strong team were so keen to get involved and volunteer that the prize is expected to rise to of well-over £30,000. The team are also looking to help the winning charity by getting involved in fundraising activities and the Media Trust have donated a bursary place on a communications course.
The competition is open to all UK registered charities. To enter charities need to post a short video onto YouTube explaining why their entry should win the prize and what difference it will make to them. The video (no longer than 3 minutes) can be anything from a mobile phone clip to a professional recording. It could be funny or hard hitting, it just needs to be memorable.
In “X Factor” fashion the entrants will be judged by a panel which includes Media Trust, Third Sector Magazine and Director and Artist Ian Emes (Duran Duran – The Chauffeur, Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon), Paul Hoskins, owner and founder of Precedent, Dean Russell, Head of Digital Marketing at Precedent and a polled vote from across the Precedent team.
Dean Russell commented “We know how passionate charities are about what they do, so we are hoping that this will create a showcase for them to promote themselves, whether they create the clip in-house, or ask their volunteers to do it for them.”
To enter, upload your video onto YouTube and send Precedent the link with details via the competition microsite (http://giveaway.precedent.co.uk). All videos will be showcased online, and a shortlist of 6 charities will be made when the competition closes November 27th, with a winner announced in December – just in time for Christmas!
As an additional bonus all the clips will be available online, adding to all the charities profiles and helping their search engine optimization. The winning charity will be promoted online throughout the project, with their website launch anticipated early in 2010.
To find out more go to http://giveaway.precedent.co.uk/
06 November, 2009
Are the big givers still giving?
The FT today picked up a report by Coutts and researchers at the University of Kent which shows that UK charities have not been as badly hit by the recession as was expected, at least in terms of their biggest donations.
According to this report the big givers, philanthropists and foundations, still gave in large amounts, only down very slightly from £1.62bn in 2006/07 to £1.14bn in 2007/08. Similarly there were 189 donations of £1m+ in 2007/08 down from 193 the year before – half from individuals, a third from foundations and 10% from companies (SF – I am intrigued who the other 7% came from - 50+33+10=93%)
‘The Coutts Million Pound Donors Report’ by Beth Breeze shows that Higher Education gets the most money, followed by arts and culture programmes and international aid: “People are still trying to make big donations even though the size of their contributions might be dented. But they aren’t cutting charity out of their budgets.”
But the report contradicts the all the other reports we keep seeing in sector and national press about charity income. Even the “rich list reports” seem to disagree, as the 2009 The Sunday Times Rich List showed a 37% fall in wealth and the CEBR reported that UK-based millionaires have halved since 2007 to 242,000.
To add to the impact of the recession more are giving their money anonymously, making it harder for the charities to work their fundraising magic, and more are giving their donations as investments.
Salvatore La Sala, CEO of the Institute for Philanthropy in the UK, reports that the young rich are taking a more active interest in how charities are run: “Younger donors not only want to give, but they also want to get involved in the organisations they support,” La Sala says. “They are keen to volunteer and give their time as well as direct financial resources.”
The full article is Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009 and can be read at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0418fb8a-cb02-11de-97e0-00144feabdc0.html
According to this report the big givers, philanthropists and foundations, still gave in large amounts, only down very slightly from £1.62bn in 2006/07 to £1.14bn in 2007/08. Similarly there were 189 donations of £1m+ in 2007/08 down from 193 the year before – half from individuals, a third from foundations and 10% from companies (SF – I am intrigued who the other 7% came from - 50+33+10=93%)
‘The Coutts Million Pound Donors Report’ by Beth Breeze shows that Higher Education gets the most money, followed by arts and culture programmes and international aid: “People are still trying to make big donations even though the size of their contributions might be dented. But they aren’t cutting charity out of their budgets.”
But the report contradicts the all the other reports we keep seeing in sector and national press about charity income. Even the “rich list reports” seem to disagree, as the 2009 The Sunday Times Rich List showed a 37% fall in wealth and the CEBR reported that UK-based millionaires have halved since 2007 to 242,000.
To add to the impact of the recession more are giving their money anonymously, making it harder for the charities to work their fundraising magic, and more are giving their donations as investments.
Salvatore La Sala, CEO of the Institute for Philanthropy in the UK, reports that the young rich are taking a more active interest in how charities are run: “Younger donors not only want to give, but they also want to get involved in the organisations they support,” La Sala says. “They are keen to volunteer and give their time as well as direct financial resources.”
The full article is Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009 and can be read at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0418fb8a-cb02-11de-97e0-00144feabdc0.html
02 November, 2009
Kiva hits a $100 Million in loans
Kiva.org hit a major milestone this weekend having loaned $100 million in microloans since it started 4 years ago. The site, which averages a loan every 13 seconds, has brought together nearly 600,000 lenders and 250,000 entrepreneurs.
Built on standard “sponsorship” lines with profile pages for lenders and recipients, the system gives monthly updates of the progress of the business the lender supports and the status of the loan. In the now familiar model when the loan is repaid the lender can choose another entrepreneur to support.
Controversially Kiva last year started allowing US entrepreneurs to apply for loans as well the more traditional recipients from developing countries. In the US at least this does not seem to have done the organisation any harm.
And the attraction of microfinance? Being able to choose the project/entrepreneur seems high on the list and of course the lender is not actually funding Kiva’s admin so 100% of the loan goes to the entrepreneur. “Recycling” the money is also an attractive proposition, although the micro-donation sites such as Givology.org seem just as popular.
Whatever the appeal, congratulations to Kiva for hitting this huge milestone which must have had a massive impact on over 200,000 peoples’ lives and that of their families and communities.
Built on standard “sponsorship” lines with profile pages for lenders and recipients, the system gives monthly updates of the progress of the business the lender supports and the status of the loan. In the now familiar model when the loan is repaid the lender can choose another entrepreneur to support.
Controversially Kiva last year started allowing US entrepreneurs to apply for loans as well the more traditional recipients from developing countries. In the US at least this does not seem to have done the organisation any harm.
And the attraction of microfinance? Being able to choose the project/entrepreneur seems high on the list and of course the lender is not actually funding Kiva’s admin so 100% of the loan goes to the entrepreneur. “Recycling” the money is also an attractive proposition, although the micro-donation sites such as Givology.org seem just as popular.
Whatever the appeal, congratulations to Kiva for hitting this huge milestone which must have had a massive impact on over 200,000 peoples’ lives and that of their families and communities.
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