Accessible internet rally

As a member of CMprofessionals, I get to see all sorts of interesting CMS related discussion threads, with a certain amount of vendor spin at times. It's refreshing then to see posts come along promoting accessibility related information for people with disablities becoming technology enabled. In my background as an Occupational Therapist, I've been well aware of the difference that technology can make to someone with a disability, and the impediments through poor design or inconsideration of the range of needs that people have.

At the recent CISA conference in Adelaide (1-2 May, 2006), one of the attendees noted the need to retain this as an ongoing focus in planning of any technology initiatives, including website design and VOIP projects. In a post received today, I noticed that there is a rally (http://www.knowbility.org/air-boston/) being held in the Boston area in January 2007 - "a one-day web design competition in which teams of web developers create web sites for local non-profit organizations, sites that are accessible to everyone—including people with disabilities and senior citizens as they age" .

It's initiatives like this that really make a difference in keeping good design skills honed and an ongoing focus on the need for accessible design. Well done to the Boston group, and I'll look forward to seeing the outcomes. It was good to also see in that same thread a solid thumbs up for the Open Source Plone CMS in its accessibility scores, with one of the chief architects, Alexander Limi, having several friends with visual impairments who regularly test and rate the system. Good one. Wish the same applied to all CMS developers (or for that matter, software developers in general). It's good to be able to keep others capabilities in mind during design.

"For most people, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes things possible."
—President's Council on Disability

More blogs about Accessibility.

CISA Connecting up conference- Adelaide 1-2 May 2006, Australia

Have just finished attending the CISA conference where part of the conference focus was on development of a National Not-for-Profit ICT Coalition (NNIC)- essentially a peak body to represent the ICT needs of the NFP/NGO sector. Excellent focus, and sorely needed. The key aspects that stood out for me? Most organisations are still struggling with the fundamentals of ICT plumbing and infrastructure, CEOs are inadequately equipped to manage and understand the ICT that is part of their responsibility, and that Australia has about 700,000 NFP/NGO organisations.

Compare this with South Africa, where there about 100,000 NGOs in operation and represented through SANGONET and the UK, which operates an UK NGO ICTHub with approx 30 million pounds at their disposal, and it's clear that Australia is well behind. Which is inexplicable given the enthusiasm for the move to increased delivery of services by NGOs by the Australian government- still, the ball is starting to roll. Here's hoping the NNIC (as it is currently known) takes the time to cherry pick from what I'd consider as best-of-breed approaches to important aspects of ICT governance (using CoBIT as a starting point, even in its abridged Quickstart format) and ICT project management (e.g PRINCE2 which I note has been adapted by the UK ICT hub), and avoids wheel-reinvention and resource wastage. Time will tell..

Took the time whilst I was there to deliver a presentation on CMS Selection for the NFP sector, which is available from the Resources page on the LaughingMind site, under conference presentations. Let me know if you found it useful at all, or other information that people would like to see.

More blogs about CommunIT.