Be Good, Be Social... Be Digital

Great evening with #begoodbesocial here's the excellent @Rach_impactarts inspiring us about #crowdfunding in the arts pic.twitter.com/Ep9rzfvkxU — Chris Yiu (@clry2) July 3, 2014

Last night I joined Rachael Brown and Tommy Whitelaw for the July gathering of Be Good Be Social, this time hosted in the brilliant Beyond The Finish Line space in Glasgow. My talk was about the tidal wave of digital innovation that is sweeping our world, and what this means for charities, voluntary organisations and others in third sector.

Digital is changing the world and will happen to the 3rd sector whether we like it or not, says @clry2 from @scvotweet at #begoodbesocial — BIG Scotland (@BIGScotland) July 3, 2014

For me there are three big themes for us to grapple with:

1. Digital: although a significant minority of people remain offline, for the majority the internet is part of day-to-day life, and many third sector organisations will need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant. There's also a warning in here: the business world is littered with companies that massively underestimated the disruptive impact of digital innovation.
2. Data: the abundance of data gives us huge potential to understand the impact of our activities, and to make smarter decisions about how we allocate scarce resources. What's more, if we can find ways to open our data up then we can help more people to learn and discover what works.
3. Social: the web was born from a desire to help people connect with each other, a goal we hold close to our hearts in the third sector. Digital tools make it possible to connect at a scale and immediacy that simply wasn't possible a decade ago, and we've only just scratched the surface when it comes to empowering everyone to participate fully in society.

Want to chat about any of this? Come find me on Twitter!