Contact databases - a practical guide to planning, developing, purchasing and making them work for you

Tuesday 16 May 2006: central London

Speakers

Details of additional speakers will be added here once they are confirmed.

Richard Collings

Richard has been working in IT for a scarily long time (after a short stint as a youth worker in a south London community project). He was heavily involved with the early adoption of PC's by the voluntary sector at the beginning of the 1980's before moving back into the commercial sector for a period, working in the finance and broadcasting sectors. Since 1991, he has worked as an independent consultant focussing mainly on the larger charities and the smaller government agencies.

He has worked across the whole project lifecycle from high level strategy work, through requirements definition and procurement, to testing and rollout. He has even been known to do a bit of development work from time to time. Recent projects have included specifying and procuring a call centre system, implementation of a web based e-service capability and the development of a long term, fundraising focussed web site strategy for a major charity. Richard is currently working for Arts Council England on a project to set up a web based resource to support arts marketeers and for English Nature (soon to be Natural England) on an IS Strategy for their Coasts and Seas division.

Simon Davey

Simon has worked in the voluntary sector for six years but is more widely experienced in change and ICT. He works as an independent consultant on a range of issues from organisational development, leadership development, ICT strategy, information management, databases and volunteering. He likes to reinvent himself every few years and this gives him a good perspective of how change works and how other people feel about it!

Simon is a visiting tutor at CASS Business School's Centre for Charity Effectiveness and delivers the three day Strategic Use of ICT course for senior managers. One of his main focus areas is the business and requirements analysis behind effective information management and database planning and the subtle handholding necessary to make projects work in 'interesting teams'.

Simon holds a number of advisory and strategic posts across the UK voluntary sector, with a focus on young people, volunteering and ICT and is currently closely involved in the implementation aspects of the ChangeUp ICT Hub in England. For more information, please visit www.preponderate.net

Massimo Giannuzzi

Massimo has worked in IT for over 25 years. In 1990 he joined London Voluntary Service Council, devising, managing and running computer training courses for the voluntary sector. During this time he was also on the management committee of 'Community Computing Network' and founded the 'Computer Support Workers Forum' (now run by NCVO). Both of these reflect his commitment to having the benefits (and the choices) of IT available at all levels.

In 1994 Massimo became a freelance system designer. Since then he has designed databases for organisations in the voluntary, statutory and commercial sectors. His company, ITsorted, provides tailor-made and off-the-shelf systems. These have been mainly in MS Access (although they have also used Filemaker Pro). For more information visit www.ITsorted.org.uk

"I am always looking for the balance between a fully featured system and one that is simple enough that people will actually use!"

Lucy Ottaway

Lucy worked in the voluntary sector for seven years for a Rural Community Council in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. She started as the receptionist for the organisation and gradually became an 'accidental techie'. During her time there she managed to change an out of date computer system that had minimum investment, into a reliable and advanced system that allowed users to work remotely and between office sites.

Although Lucy no longer works in the voluntary sector, her new role at Herefordshire Council still allows her to support the local CABx and other voluntary organisations in the area.

Iain Pritchard

Iain Pritchard is a partner at Sayer Vincent and leads on consultancy assignments involving information system planning and implementation. Iain has worked in both the commercial and voluntary sectors and has been head of IS at The Children's Society and at The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust. Iain is currently advising a range of national charities in areas from strategic planning and project governance to system selection and implementation management.Iain speaks regularly at key charity events and at the ISBenchlearning forum on successful information systems planning.

Paul Ticher

Paul has been an independent consultant for 15 years, after a career in various voluntary organisations, first in administrative and campaigning roles, then as an adviser on ICT. In 1985 he researched and published a pioneering study: At the touch of a button, a review of community information services that were making use of IT, many of which were (or were planned to be) built around databases holding details of the local voluntary sector.

Paul has followed developments since then with interest. Most recently he has been working as a consultant with several organisations and groups of organisations in defining their database needs and selecting suppliers, as well as advising on Data Protection issues. He has also carried out research projects into the ICT needs and experiences of voluntary organisations.

Emma Whittlesea

Emma has worked on sustainability issues for Local Government, NGOs and national government agencies over the last eight years. For the last few years she has worked for the Audit Commission leading on their national Area Profiles pilot. A key component of this work has been the development of a 'toolkit' and common templates to improve ICT infrastructure to ensure consistency, compatibility, encourage data sharing and produce evidence directly relevant to policy and practice. The pilot outcomes have significant use and benefits by encouraging a consistent national approach to ICT.