For three days this week, I had the pleasure of attending the Side-by-Side Technology conference in Baltimore featuring Therap, an online documentation system for organizations serving people with developmental disabilities;  College of Direct Support, an online training system geared toward professionals in our field; RestAssured, a web-based “telecare” system; and Talintel, an online psychometric tool to pre-screen potential staff.

Obviously, what we do is pretty specialized and I wouldn’t presume to think most readers will be interested in all the details. But our specialized work–and the smaller resources available to small nonprofits and human services providers–is kinda the point of this whole post. Most of our service providers struggle with declining budgets; some are struggling to keep their doors open. It is a challenge for many of us to stay abreast of technology. On the other side of the equation, how can we interest vendors and tech companies in developing software and applications designed for our work?  How do they make it work? As Therap CEO Richard Robbins reminded us, there are a lot of exciting and free (e.g. Google) or low-cost (Droid, i Phone) applications out there that could transform the way we do business–but they aren’t HIPAA-compliant, which means they don’t work for our field.

It’s an interesting conundrum: we who arguably have the least resources also have significant roadblocks around technology.

At any rate, I am grateful that the entities at the conference have invested blood, sweat and tears; have aligned themselves with and collaborated with various other organizations or institutions; and have been creative, determined, and down-right dogged in their determination to make something happen despite the odds stacked against them.

My co-workers and I came away incredibly energized and excited about the possibilities available to us. Technology makes such a difference and we look forward to harnessing its power in new and thrilling ways, thanks to our future partners.

photo by aranarth

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I’ve learned so much from the digital world and it’s enriched my professional and personal lives immeasurably, but sother ometimes I just want to bail.

I go through different phases with Twitter: I love it, hate it, sing its praises to the uninitiated, don’t have time for it, adore it, neglect it, benefit from it, love it, hate it again.

I’ve built connections there, ones that have extended to FaceBook, Gmail, phone conversations,  business relationships, genuine friendships.

Yet, if I am gone from the Twittersphere/Blogosphere for a day, a week, two weeks–as I have been several times recently–no-one notices. It feels like the social media form of “publish or perish.”  You’re only as good as your last tweet, your last post, your last update. Who can keep that up indefinitely, I wonder?

I’m not logging on to  Twitter as much I used to, especially since many of my HR contacts have been Facebook friends for awhile. My job is fast-paced and I rarely have time to spend on Twitter at work. So my investment in Twitter, which was heavy in the beginning, has been on my own time and as we should all do from time to time, I’m re-evaluating my use of time.

I also find myself thinking, okay, what’s next? What’s the new Twitter?

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Sometimes when my husband and I go out to eat and the service is less than stellar, we joke that if the waiter knew we were famous food critics, we would enjoy a very different dining experience. Of course, we’re not restaurant critics.  But I thought about our running joke the other day while on the train.

So I was on a train–the rail line shall remain anonymous–and we were delayed for five hours because of an accident. Read the rest of this entry »

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For several months, I’ve been taming my office Outlook account. I’ve worked for my employer for almost ten years and during this tenure my in-box has taken on a life of its own, increasingly resembling some kind of mutant swamp monster, the office refrigerator or a man-eating tiger.

Six months ago, I probably averaged 500 daily in-box messages, a garbled mixture of the following in descending order of prevalence:

1. Spam that escaped our corporate spam filters. Yeah, this stuff dominated my in-box.
2. Resumes.
3. Ads from HR, management, training, safety, wellness, benefits and compliance vendors.
4. Newsletters and blogs from HR, management, training, safety, wellness, compliance, benefits professionals.
5. Actual e-mail correspondence.

Notice what was at the bottom. Argh! (author screams!)  It was out of control, no fun, took an inordinate amount of time to wade through. And I was always up against my storage ceiling.

I am not a techie, but because of the frequency of complaints from other (non-techie) kindred souls I know I’m not alone and would like to share what I’ve done to make my in-box less frightening: Read the rest of this entry »

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Needless to say, many people would probably not describe their own life experience or their own workplace as glowingly as I described the Twitterverse. Which got me wondering how we could adapt twitter principles to quote, unquote real life; how can we “tweet offline,” so to speak?

Questions to consider about taking the Twitterverse offline:

RT (Re-Tweeting or forwarding others posts): Away from social media, how often do you pass on other’s great ideas, blogs, articles and contributions? Doing so is an integral part of the twitter culture.

Tweeting (Posting): Are you talking to yourself in a monologue, or are you engaging in two way conversation, building connections and relationships? Does what you say add value to others’ lives? If not, on Twitter, you’ll eventually be un-followed. Offline, people just tune you out or fail to take you seriously.

Follow Friday (Recommending other people to your following, typically done on Fridays): How often do you recommend others to increase their sphere of influence, realizing that it detracts nothing from your own stature and in fact adds to it?

Trending Topics: Do you staying current with emerging trends in your field?

Followers: Are you actively seeking out new people to add to your circle of contacts? Are you networking? Can you see every interaction (lunch counter, elevator, train station, etc.) as an opportunity to reach out to others? Are you able to learn from everyone you meet, not just those who are at or above your perceived social standing?

Twitter & Me. For me, joining Twitter has been a shot in the arm of creativity. I’ve met fantastic minds and I’m loving swimming in a sea of knowledge, new ideas, with unlimited opportunity for self-expression. And I’ve been more intentional about increasing my network away from my computer, tweeting offline. I hope your own experience has been similarly positive.

And to my husband: honey, I’ll be more than glad to follow you online or off!

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