Monday, October 17, 2005

Book review....

I received a copy of Sue Bennett's great new book from the Fieldstone Alliance, The Accidental Techie; Supporting, Managing and Maximizing Your Nonprofit's Technology.

It is great. It has a broader audience than you might think, but is focused on those of us who inherit the tech roles in our nonprofits, and yet don't hold a master's in computer science from MIT. That's most of us. It is full of practical advice, checklists, worksheets and resources on the issues that vex most part time techies. For example, there is an entire chapter on tech protection...an area where many of us lose sleep. There is a chapter on funding for technology, and one on supporting tech users. Not only would this be a good book for techies, but also for executive directors who are supervising techies--there is a fair amount of explanation of the key issues that would be helpful even to nontechies.

This book is a must for anyone who dabbles in tech, or who becomes a techie because, in the words of the first quote in the book: "Since I knew what a motherboard was, and I had a screwdriver, I became the computer "expert" in our office."

This is a resource that I will both refer to myself and recommend to clients for a long time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And the fact that it is only available in paper speaks volumes to why the entire sector lags behind in technology.