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Engage Your Community Conference Agenda

by Mike Riversdale

Here’s Google Calendar version of the Wellington conference agenda so you can add it to your own calendar using it’s iCal feed

To learn how to create your own public Google Calendar showcasing your own events read our guide: Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

What’s the conference about - this:

This is a conference pitched at an introductory level. If you’ve ever wondered how the web could be better used by your organisation; or know what a blog is, but not how it could be useful; or are a little nervous about opening a Facebook account, then this is a conference for you. If you think the internet is for geeks, or young people, or those with nothing better to do with their time, then this is a conference for you. And if you want to move beyond using email and having a simple website, then this is a conference for you.

This is a cross posting from MiramarMike.co.nz

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August 15, 2008   1 Comment

Wellington Engage Your Community

by Miraz

Engage your Community. In or around Wellington? Mark your calendars now — 4 September 2008, Wellington at Massey University: Engage Your Community - a web conference for community organisations:

If you’ve ever wondered how the web could be better used by your organisation; or know what a blog is, but not how it could be useful; or are a little nervous about opening a Facebook account, then this is a conference for you. If you think the internet is for geeks, or young people, or those with nothing better to do with their time, then this is a conference for you. And if you want to move beyond using email and having a simple website, then this is a conference for you.

It’s also a conference aimed squarely and unapologetically at the community sector. At those voluntary and non-profit organisations working at the grass-roots level. We know that you’re stretched and busy and over-worked. We know that you may even be thinking, “There’s no way I can spare a day going to a conference! I’ve got too much going on right now.” But we also know that it’s vitally important for organisations like yours to engage with the web and to engage with those members of the community growing up online.

The Engage Your Community conference that will give you an introduction and lead you to the next step. If you can use email and navigate your way around a website, then you’ve got all the technical knowledge you’ll need to get something from the conference.

[Via : Who It's For | Overview | Engage Your Community - a web conference for community organisations.]

August 6, 2008   No Comments

Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

by Mike Riversdale

If you run a sports club, this post is for you.
If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you
If you host events, this is for you.
If you put on shows, this is for you.

In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you’d like to share with people, this is for you. Yep, probably for all of us.

Sharing calendars can be both:

  • an effective way of letting everyone know
  • a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region

If you’ve posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don’t even think about integrating with somebody else’s “events page”.

Ok, so we all know the problem.
What’s the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) … yep, it’s a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that’s enough geekery, if you want to know more pop over to Wikipedia: iCalendar

All we need to know is that iCal is the Web way of sharing calendars.
And with everyone being on the Web why not make your sporting club calendar available on the Web? “Because it sounds hard Mike, that’s why!”

Allow Google Calendar to be your friend.
Google Calendar is not just a calendaring system for you, the singular, even though it does that very well. It also allows you to:

  • Set-up group calendars
  • Share and collaborate on calendars
  • Publish them on the Web

And it’s the last bit I want to draw your attention to today.
Publishing your calendar on the Web means that anyone can “subscribe” to your calendar and all updates you make are instantly reflected in their calendar client. And it’s not just about dates and times but also locations, maps, details and even links to web pages.

Take a look at this example from the publicly available Wellingtonista Event Calendar (iCal)

Everything you need to know without ever having to do a thing.

Set-up a public Google Calendar

  1. Get yourself a Google Account
  2. Go to your Google Calendar (http://calendar.google.com)
  3. Click the ‘Manage calendars’ link - bottom left of the current calendar list (which might only be one, yours)
  4. At the bottom of the “My calendars” list click the the ‘Create new calendar’ button
  5. Fill in the new calendar details including:
    • A clear name (I include a location that the calendar covers such as “Wellington, New Zealand”)
    • Verbose and clear description
    • Who, if anyone, you’d like to be able to update the calendar

  6. Ensure the “Make this calendar public” is ticked

    Note: you can change this later or for specific events
  7. Push the “Create Calendar” button
  8. Start adding your events

Share your newly created public calendar
Google will index your calendar within 24 hours allowing it to be searched by everyone.

However there are many other ways to share your calendar and, because it uses the Web standard iCal, they don’t have to use Google Calendar (but why wouldn’t you!) as long as their calendaring system understands iCal you’re sorted.

And for the uber geeks and/or IT Departments you can build calendars on your own website using Google Calendar Data API

One final goodie, notifications.
You can have events pop-up, email you or even send a txt to your mobile … you never have to miss an event ever again!

Add a public calendar to your Google Calendar

  1. Go to your Google Calendar (http://calendar.google.com)
  2. Click the ‘Manage calendars’ link - bottom left of the current calendar list (which might only be one, yours)
  3. Click the ‘Add calendar’ button - bottom of the list of current “Other calendars”
  4. Make sure you’re in the “Search Public Calendars” tab
  5. Search for your calendar (eg, wellingtonista) and push the ‘Search’ button
  6. There it is - click the ‘Add Calendar’ button

A sample of public calendars
Finally, the goodies we’ve all been waiting for, a sample list of publicly available calendars you can subscribe to right now by either doing a search inside your Google Calendar or by browsing the Google Calendar Directory. If you publish a public calendar for your events let me know and I’ll tell the world for you.

New Zealand
978 calendars matched my search, here’s a sample:

Australia
A total of 457 matched my calendar search with the following a mere taste:

UK
Too many to contemplate, you’re gonna have to really be specific to the events you want :-)

The rest of the world
I went looking for the strangest calendars I could find and the three I present to you are:

More resources
There’s LOTS about Google Calendar on the Web, here’s some pre-loaded searches for you:

(this is a cross posting from MiramarMike.co.nz)

July 28, 2008   2 Comments

Google Apps is good for 1, 5 or 50,000 users

by Miraz

An email in Gmail with options for attachments Geekzone reports that NZ universities are starting to move to Google Apps — where users have Gmail accounts, calendar, documents that they can access from any computer that’s connected to the Internet.

This is a tool that community groups should be thinking about, as Mike Riversdale explained so well in his workshop at the Hamilton Engage Your Community conference.

The benefits of Google Apps are clear: let Google do the heavy lifting of providing disc space, software, backups, anti-virus and anti-spam measures.

Google Apps is available to any individual, group, community organisation or business. Has your group used it? Leave a comment below with your experiences.

Google Apps Education Edition is a suite of Web-based applications that includes Gmail email services, Google Docs online documents, spreadsheets and presentations, Google Calendar shared calendaring, Google Talk instant messaging, Google Sites website creator and the Google Start Page feature for creating a customisable home page on a specific domain. With Google’s search technology built in, Google Apps enables students to easily sort through and find their emails and documents.

Students, staff and alumni at the University of Auckland will be able to access these applications on any computer with an internet connection, as well as share information and collaborate on work with classmates, colleagues and lecturers.

… This shift to Google Apps and online services by New Zealand Universities is part of a trend of schools and businesses embracing “cloud computing” - a move to web-based applications that allows for greater collaboration and access to information. By freeing up IT resources, cloud computing empowers schools to focus on education, rather than IT administration.

[Via : University of Auckland to roll out Google Apps for 50,000 users.]

July 12, 2008   No Comments

Google for Non-Profits

by Miraz

Google have a section dedicated to non-profit organisations where they explain all the various tools they have available, and how your organisation can use those tools. Google for Non-Profits lists all the tools, and links to tutorials for all of them.

Note that not all tools are available worldwide yet.

I use many of these tools daily — Gmail, Calendar and Analytics, for example. They can provide a lot of value for community organisations.

Here’s what Google for Non-Profits has to say:

You are changing the world. We want to help.

Learn how to use free Google tools to promote your work, raise money, and operate more efficiently.

Gmail
Save time and resources with free Google-hosted email, customized for your domain
Checkout
Collect donations online and process them for free, with no monthly, setup, or gateway fees
Docs
Create and edit documents online and collaborate in real time with staff and volunteers
Calendar
Organize schedules and publicize events with shared calendars
Analytics
Understand how people find and interact with information on your website
Google Grants
Reach and engage your supporters through free online advertising
YouTube
Broadcast your cause to the world’s largest online video community
Blogger
Publish instantly and keep your supporters informed and engaged
Maps & Earth
Give life to your cause by illustrating its global context
Gadgets
Drive traffic to your website and interact with your supporters more often
Groups
Communicate easily to staff or volunteers and encourage discussions among supporters

[Thanks to Ted Zorn for suggesting this post. ]

March 28, 2008   1 Comment