Technology Planning

A recent question about technology plans got me wondering how long developing a technology plan should take? More than a few months and you run the risk of the technology overtaking your plan.

Technology plans have, essentially, three parts: an inventory of your current technology status (policies, hardware, software, training, staff and consultant expertise); an environmental scan outlining hardware, software, emerging technologies, training availability; and a comprehensive plan for future development for no more than three, possibly five years.

If you don't have the in house expertise, you need to hire in the consultant help. In DC, I use a wonderful group that works exclusively with nonprofits called Community IT Innovators http://www.citidc.com./

How to write a technology plan for IMLS:
http://www.mlin.lib.ma.us/grants/erate/techplan/index.php

Stephen Toney's view of your museum has technology figuring large. Toney and I worked together at the Smithsonian back in the day. The article gives a fairly comprehensive overview of the work. It's serious work, the kind of work that can drive a director crazy because it takes so much time (and money) just in the planning. The article is 2000 so it is somewhat dated but it holds, I think. http://www.systemsplanning.com/mnc3.asp

Michael Kaiser, CEO of the Kennedy Center, asked an important question of nonprofit educational organizations last week: What can we do for a single child (multiplied eventually by thousands) from pre-K to 12? Imagine that an arts organization (or maybe a partnership) could tell a parent, a PTA, or a funder about the programs – pre kindergarten through twelfth grad – for little Johnnie or Sally. Imagine a system of learning for a child throughout his and her student years, was his important point to consider point.

Since Mr. Kaiser arrived in Washington he’s begun a real effort to share his own considerable management expertise and that of the Kennedy Center. www.artsmanager.org