I did this last year so I think it will have to be a tradition now!

Really enjoyed Connecting Up Australia 12, some great conversations and a fantastic international line-up. Was good to catch up with Terry Stokes from LASA, an organisation we’ve worked closely with in the UK for the best part of a decade. Also great to hear Gunner’s keynote this morning, couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything he had to say about the cloud. Was also relieved to hear the positive words about the Salesforce platform, something we’ve bet our organisation on for the huge benefits we think it can bring to the sector.

So what was the big take-away this year?

The last couple of years have been very much focused on social media and its impact on the sector. For sure it is and will continue to be a massive part of the modern world and something every organisation has to get to grips with – never before has there been such an amazing opportunity to engage directly with supporters wherever they may be.

At the same time there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in the technology world – not unconnected, nothing is unconnected these days – but it’s broader in its direct impact for organisations. It was great to see this year that the discussion has broadened out and there’s much more emphasis on the whole technology picture. The talk was very much of how organisations can benefit from the new technologies of every description – cloud, social, web, mobile etc. And just as importantly, what to worry about in the process.

Without doubt each year it becomes more and more exciting to be involved in technology and the not-for-profit sector. It has moved from a backend processing function to being absolutely key to every organisation’s success (or otherwise).

Looking forward to #CU13! See you there..