The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh EH3 6BB.
After a few months getting things lined up, the SCVO Labs show is now well and truly on the road. Over the last week we've put the initial team together, upgraded this website and started to prepare our workspace. We'll be running an agile, user-centred design process, and doing our best to adhere to the principles behind the agile manifesto.
Our mission flows from a desire to find new and better ways to help people in Scotland participate in civil society and get involved with good causes. Digital technologies - the web, social media, mobile devices and more - give us powerful opportunities to make connections within and between communities, and to do this at massive scale (Marc Andreessen memorably described this as software eating the world).
Rather than simply speculate about what this might mean for SCVO and the sort of world we aspire to, we'll be starting practical work to understand user needs, to build working prototypes of new digital tools and platforms, and to continuously improve our efforts based on data about how they are being used. Crucially, we'll be keeping a laser focus on generating social value, and ensuring that what we build complements and enhances the very human contributions and interactions that underpin the third sector.
From here on out we'll be posting regularly about our work. You can expect the full behind-the-scenes treatment, from work-in-progress thinking about products and user needs, to a rundown of our working environment and the technology and design principles that we're putting in play. We're super excited about the weeks and months ahead, and we hope you'll enjoy sharing our story as it unfolds.