What did you do on the morning of Saturday the 20th of October? I was out at my local town centre with my 3 year old son when we spotted some witches!!
My very excited child ran over to the witches and I discovered that they represented a local charity which helps children with ‘advanced needs’ the Wildern Opportunity Group. When chatting with the girls about what they do and watching my son win a plastic spider (he loves it!), It was then I thought about myself and questioned my own humanity (if I had 10% of the decency of these girls I would be a fine human indeed).
Hearing about the funding and other issues such as a lack of sensory equipment, I walked away feeling helpless and freely admit to having a tear stream down my cheek.
After coming home and ‘making myself man up’ putting on my headphones and zoning out, I started to think what I could do to help them? Dianna Ross and the Supremes Kicked in “ain’t no Mountain High Enough” (not my playlist honest!) which gave me an inspirational moment. I work in an amazing industry packed with kind people who are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters I know that we will rally around a great cause!
Yesterday (22nd October) I had a totally amazing meeting sitting on a toddler seat at the Wildern Centre (the thought of a major cloud player sitting in the same seat doing a meeting in a pin stripe suit made me laugh!), and discussing how we can help.
When I founded this website you are now visiting I was determined to ensure that Compare the Cloud can be used as a force of good I truly thank you Wildern Group from the bottom of my heart for giving me that opportunity so here is the plan!
Smash the funding target & Use Cloud Computing to make a difference
They need to raise £20,000 to fund ongoing activities to help these amazing children and parents lives that little bit easier. Hit the PayPal donate button on their website here http://www.wildernopportunitygroup.co.uk/ each person donating come back onto this blog and leave a comment, we will then publish a link to your website!
Each donation made I will retweet your brand, I also intend to reach out to my media contacts to retweet and respectfully ask providers to put rivalry aside and retweet any donation made!
Being amazing and donating will really make a difference no matter how large or small associate your brand with something truly positive!
I have never requested that people hit our social share buttons as quality content should stand out! but please please please put this post on twitter, facebook, linkedin and any social bookmarking service. Spread the word a share is as good as a donation to raise awareness!
Cloud Sales teams buy some karma for your next deal!!
Check out their wish-list (this is due to be updated) http://www.wildernopportunitygroup.co.uk/pre-school/hedgeend/wish-list
Donations to date:
Compare the Cloud
James Golding www.tdmgroup.net
Graham Spivey www.thebunker.net
Marcus Cauchi Sandler Training
Kerry Burn www.848.co
Fenton Bard www.sourceplc.com
Richard May www.virtualdcs.co.uk
Eamonn Colman www.computenext.com
Richard Cook www.championcomms.com
Paul Heywood www.claranet.co.uk
Frank Bennett www.cloudassessment.co.uk
Mitchell Feldman www.cloudamour.com
Ray Bricknell Linked in
James Rees www.razorthorn.co.uk
Ian Cooper www.hostedaccountants.co.uk
Daniel Steeves www.beyond-solutions.co.uk
David Terrar www.d2c.org.uk
Neil Cattermull (personal donation)
Maggie Meer www.cloudexpoeurope.com
Doug Clark (personal donation) @Cloudstuff
Millovan Milic www.devtech.rs
Paul Bates www.probox.eu
Neal Wilkinson www.sleek.net
Gav Brining www.vmug.org.uk
Mike Blackmore www.oracle.com
Martin Clare www.imtechict.co.uk
Dr James Mitchell www.strategic-blue.com
Stephen Maloney www.imtechict.co.uk
Dave Cartwright www.safehosts.co.uk
What can cloud computing do to help?
Lets build them a ‘Castle in the Sky’….
I am going to reach out to some of the finest technical minds in our industry to help stir a direct debate (morning Simon and Bernino email due in your inboxes shortly)!
After talking to Terri (Manager Wildern Opportunity Group) and hearing about the issues they have with lack of children’s places and sensory toys and failing equipment, we moved on to discussing how technology could aid in helping parents and children.
The Cloud Dream Team!
Imagine forming a cloud dream team to aid the group? Let us prove to the wider commercial world that the cloud industry can provide clear simple products that are easily adopted and meet genuine needs.
So firstly we need a volunteer who is able to take ideas and translate them into needs!
We need a great project manager to scope and manage requirements (morning JD)!
A technical architect!
A delivery manager!
A security expert! (morning JR)
Any other dream team suggestions welcome I will update accordingly!
Using cloud computing technology to make an impact
Put yourself in this scenario, you’re a father or mother its 3:00am (a child with additional needs on average sleeps 2-3 hours per night), imagine being able to log onto a secure private cloud and perhaps chat with another parent maybe about football or swapping advice using VOIP or IM?
Take that idea a step further perhaps streaming videos onto a tablet PC to create a sensory environment or bringing the virtual centre to the child at 3:00am?
The staff could then produce training videos, tips and guidance upload content grow the community to include professionals, remember one video produced by an overworked professional can reach hundreds of parents!
From a business perspective they will need social media guidance clear easy documentation and simple walkthroughs perhaps on video?
To all the technical people reading this blog, spare some time and see if you can debate on how we can provide an immersive cloud based sensory environment that can touch the souls of these children, any ideas would be great and your reward for your valuable time is a smile on a parents and child’s face!
With regards building covenants is there a DC provider out there willing to help them navigate local politics and solve restrictions in place?
Lets scope this out together as a community, I will be inviting the parents and staff onto this blog once we have started nailing down ideas to interact and hopefully help us create a live scoping exercise.
Remember we need to no take up any time and deliver something simple clear and effective with a single point of contact to gently help the Wildern team!
Note: this blog post is free of any copyright restrictions with all comments and content open source, feel free to share link or reproduce in any format.
Help make this small worthwhile charity make some noise!!! Please re-tweet and share using the social buttons below!
Post date: 2012-10-23 09:10:06