I’m a bit behind as they were released last week, but being a bit of a stats nerd I just wanted to share the latest figures from the ONS which reveal the state of the offline nation, with 15% of adults in the UK (7.4 million people) still never having used the internet – 69% who are over 75, and 53% who have some kind of disability.

It’s only when we support the whole nation to be confident internet users that we can say we’re a truly digital nation.

It’s week four of our Start something campaign, challenging everyone to leave failed New Year’s resolutions behind and Start something online instead.

I just wanted to make it clear that this does mean EVERYONE. Including me! (I say with at least a little trepidation).

It’s not just about people who have never touched a computer before. This is also a campaign for people who know a little but not a lot, people stuck in a technology rut, or people who just love it all so much they can’t wait to try the next thing!

I like to practice what I (and OCF) preach, and it just so happens I LOVE starting anything new online! So honour-bound by our campaign, I’ve started to keep fit online.

Now sitting in front a computer may not seem immediately to be a good way to keep fit, but it really is proving surprisingly useful. Now there’s all the usual stuff about finding healthy recipes, calculating your BMI on NHS.co.uk etc etc, but now keeping fit online has gone mobile. It’s got Apps! And as we all know, an App a day keeps the Dr away. Or something.

Now my latest App is called My Fitness Pal (other brands available, I’m sure). Okay, we’re not that pally yet – in fact it’s something of a nag – but it does some quite amazing stuff. There’s all the calorie counting you’d expect, but it also helps you track your exercise, and attempts to motivate you to do more! I won’t bore you with the details, but I will share three things I’ve learnt since I’ve started:

1. 115 minutes of cleaning burns a frankly astonishing amount of calories (though it doesn’t get it any further up my list of favourite activities)

2. An apple only has 80 calories

3. And dog walking is considered ‘moderate’ exercise (My Fitness Pal has has obviously never met my Bob!)

These may not be earth-shattering slices of knowledge, but I’m learning, and one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how much there is out there to learn, and how the internet can open it up to everyone. Whatever your hobby, whatever your interest – and whatever your level of skill – you can start something new online RIGHT NOW, that could change your life. It might just make me a bit healthier. But it might get someone else in contact with family friends. It might get someone else their dream job. And it might help someone else to be less isolated.

If everyone involved in and by our campaign learns just three things, that’s a lot more knowledge in the world. And if everyone who starts something online finds it changes their lives for the better – even in the smallest of ways – that’s the biggest of wins for OCF.

Back in the office, we’ve all been starting something new online – and we’d like you to join in too. We’re asking our centres and friends to take part in our fun film, which you can see here. Send us your Start something pics or clips via Twitter (#startsomethingonline) or Facebook and we’ll include them in our final edit! Just use simple piece of copy paper, and a phone.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in the same way as I spend most of my weeks – going out and talking to partners about what we do as an organisation. A few of the meetings I’ve had recently have made me think about how people perceive the UK online centres network – or should I say ‘wrongly perceive’ – people tell me they think of it as a network of places (much like shops) on the high street with rows of computers and staffed by paid employees. This couldn’t be further from the truth, so I wanted to paint a more accurate picture of what our network looks like.

A lot of the confusion is around language – we’re called UK online centres, and we often refer to our community partners as “centres”. But as a network organisation, it’s vital that we can provide leadership, support and services for a range of places, organisations and partners, wherever they might be, so that everyone can get the support they need to improve their skills.

We don’t talk enough about the link between digital inclusion and economic growth, so this morning I thought I would. I was on a panel at the The Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (PICTFOR) in cooperation with Next Gen Events Breakfast Event on Broadband which was seeking to get a range of voices and opinions.

I always quake slightly when standing up in front of a room full of people whose jobs and passions are about broadband infrastructure as I assume that they won’t care or be interested in my view that we need more balance in the debate – a bit more ‘people’ alongside the vocal ‘pipes’ constituent. But my assumption was wrong. There was lots of support for the view that everyone should be supported, encouraged – and even subsidised – to get the skills and access they need to use the internet, which made me feel very positive. It would be fair to say some people in the room were more assertive and more ambitious about the need for substantial funding for digital inclusion.

The infographic my colleague Vicky and I produced for the event (below) shows that people don’t use the internet due to:

• Motivation: 54% of people don’t have broadband at home as they “felt didn’t need it”
• Skills & Confidence: 22% cite lack of internet skills as the reason
• Access for Sustained Use: Fewer than 1% said poor broadband access was the reason they’re not online. However, for some they just can’t afford the internet at home and this is a barrier to them become a frequent and sustained user.

People and Pipes: Driving Economic Growth by UKOLC

Digital inclusion for me combines policy and action on these three fronts: Motivation (raising awareness); Skills & Confidence (raising basic competence levels); and Access for Sustained Use (helping people to get information or subsidies to access the internet at home).

I rarely say we need more money for digital inclusion, but today I did. I’m asking for more balance when investing in a nation where everyone can use digital services and drive our digital economy. The £1bn – £1.5bn investment in the superfast infrastructure impact on economic growth will deliver 0.5% to our GDP The Superfast and The Furious, Policy Exchange) however we expect the contribution of digital to the GDP to increase by 4.1% in the next four years due to our use of the internet. Surely the UK needs to invest far more in helping people to use it and get sustained access to it? I also called for a focus on outcomes (people) – e.g. jobs, education, inclusion – and not just on outputs (pipes), which isn’t always the widely held view.

I know not everyone will agree with my views, but the figures are difficult to argue with. And this is a debate we will need to keep having until we get the balance right – I hope with every event like this we are getting closer to reaching that balance.

At the Fourth #socialdigital Research Symposium yesterday Robin Spinks from RNIB showed us all the huge impact mobile devices have on his life. When he’s at a presentation of some sort, he uses his iPad to take a photo and enlarge it so that he can see the words on the screen from his seat. It just reaffirmed the anecdotal evidence, and the instinctive feeling that I have that smartphones and tablets are a game changer for digital inclusion.

I love mobile technology, but despite these impressive statistics, it’s not yet the silver bullet for digital inclusion, and although there’s lots of anecdotal stories (like Robin’s) that it’s helpful, we don’t yet have the evidence to prove it.

Ofcom’s 2012 Communications Market Report says that just 3% of smartphone users rely solely on this one device to connect to the internet, but although 55% of people in socio economic group AB use their mobile phone to go online, this drops to just 33% among socio-economic group DE.

The recently published Government Digital Strategy says there is no correlation between owning a smartphone and income, with 39% of mobile internet users earning less than £12,500, so interestingly it is usage rather than ownership that is linked to income and I would hazard a guess that a great deal of this is related to issues around data. To ensure smartphones and tablets are affordable enough to be useful, it’s important that we invest in a better universal and free wifi provision throughout the country (and I’m not normally a pipes person!).

We also need to make sure that the rise of the mobile device doesn’t have a negative impact on digital skills. In the age of Universal Credit, being able to play Angry Birds or update your Facebook status on the go will not be enough – more than ever, people will need to be able to fill in forms online, bank online, check their benefits online, and we need to support people to gain these skills, both through mobile and less mobile devices like PCs.

So mobile technology isn’t the silver bullet just yet but there are some pretty good things about it. With this in mind, on Monday we launched the first of our courses that works properly on a smartphone and tablet. You can find the course, Make Money Work, here (do try it out on your mobile device). In time, all of our courses will not only be mobile friendly, but will support people to use mobile technologies to make the most of the online world.

What mobile definitely does represent is a great opportunity, allowing us to reach whole new audiences who cannot – or do not want to – benefit from fixed broadband and who find the whole “keyboard and mouse” thing clunky and not useful. It will mean we can develop new, better services that can be available to people through mobile devices, wherever they are. We need to make sure we can keep up with the heady rate that new mobile technologies are developed and ensure that everyone has the confidence, skills and access that they need to use them. By doing that, we may begin to see the true impact mobile technology can have on closing the digital divide maybe not in 2013 but sometime in the not too distant future.

This week I’ve been thinking about champions. When Queen sang about champions, they sang about winners. A champion isn’t just an advocate for a cause, they’re also a winner – an expert willing to share their expertise. And I’m thinking about it this week because of the work of a new group of champions from the UK online centres network.

These are tech-savvy centres who have come together to help other community organisations in their areas to improve their use of digital technologies. Over the next few months, they’ll be using the new Community How To service – www.communityhowto.com – to introduce these organisers to some of the tools which could help them do more in their local community – things like fundraising, project management, volunteer management, and impact evaluation.

One of our champions, West Harton Action Station in South Shields, has put together a series of workshops and invited along a whole host of community groups. Local people getting involved will include representatives from older people’s action groups, tenant associations, various clubs and women’s groups. The focus of their sessions will be on websites and social media – helping each group build a digital profile that can help them engage both users and potential funders. Volunteers will work with each group after their workshop to create a vibrant, active and most importantly ongoing digital presence.

It’s ironic that it’s the very tiny organisations that are really driving the original ‘big’ society. And it’s among these very small, often self-started groups that digital capabilities are often lowest, and furthest down the to do list. They’re exactly the people and organisations who can benefit most from Community How To, and the tools and experiences shared there by other community groups. They’re also the very hardest people to reach, and to persuade to try something new.

That’s where champions really do come into their own. There isn’t another way to identify these very local groups, to contact them, strike up a conversation about the potential of digital tools, what’s out there, and how it could help them do what they do.

Following Queen’s lyrics, it’s my hope that these champions – like West Harton Action Station – will mean there are far fewer community group ‘losers’ when it comes to technology.

You can follow the champions’ work – and success stories – on Twitter via #communityhowto and at @communityhowto. If you know a local group – or group of groups – who might benefit from Community How To, get in touch with the champions via help@ukonlinecentres.com.

I’ve talked on here before about my work with social housing providers, so I thought you might be interested in a blog I wrote for the Guardian Housing Network about how to make 2013 the year for digital inclusion:

Six steps for improve digital inclusion in 2013

2013 is going to be a big year for digital inclusion in the housing sector. From the end of this year tenants will need to start claiming their benefits online, and so housing providers can no longer avoid the shift to digital. Over the past year I’ve helped a number of organisations with their digital strategies, and I’ve picked up a few tips along the way of how to implement a digital strategy that I hope will help you and your organisation in 2013.

Embrace digital

Wherever you are now, soon you will be a digital business. The future will be digital because your customers will demand it of you. The sooner you accept that, and start making the moves towards becoming a digital organisation, the easier the process will be for you, your staff and your tenants.

Think digital – not just digital inclusion

If you start the process by thinking about how you are going to become a digital organisation, bringing tenants along with you will be a lot easier. Your digital strategy will have a positive impact across your business, helping you work more efficiently and deliver a better service as well as helping your tenants to become more financially, socially and digitally included.

But remember – it’s a change programme, not a technology one

It’s easy to get consumed with the tools and the technology you’ll want to use to support your new digital business, but to be successful your digital strategy needs to be about winning the hearts and minds and staff and tenants as well as putting the pipes in.

Share your knowledge

Creating a digital strategy from scratch can be pretty daunting, but you’re not the first provider to go through it, and there are plenty of organisations out there who are happy to share their expertise. TheDigital Housing Hub is a great place to start, and you’ll find lots of others who are happy to share tales of what they’ve done, as well as their own digital strategies.

Address the main barriers

We know the main barriers that prevent people from using the internet are motivation, skills and access, so to be successful in supporting your tenants you need to address all three, without overemphasising any of them. It’s easy to see broadband for all as the golden ticket, but without the need to go online, or the skills to use the internet confidently, it’s likely residents will continue to feel excluded. Supporting residents to improve their skills isn’t always easy, but there are organisations who are experts at it, including UK online centres, Digital Unite and Age UK, so seek out advice and support when you need it.

Know your tenants

It’s really important to understand your excluded residents, and target them carefully. If it’s parents of school age children, then supporting them to find school places online or to help their children with learning can be the carrot they need to improve their own skills. Universal credit will be a big stick to encourage tenants to improve their skills, but providing some carrots as well will help makes the journey easier for everyone.

Start quickly – and start now

My main piece of advice, and the one that I think is the most important, is to start quickly and to make small changes today. I’ve seen examples of housing providers moving all payslips online, or giving senior managers tablets to help make their work easier. By taking little steps, and ensuring digital becomes embedded within the organisation, the big steps will feel a lot easier.

The Digital Housing Hub also saw it’s 500th member register yesterday, so if you’re working in the social housing sector and want to share what you’re doing or ask questions of others who are in the same position, do go and register today. 

As my first blog of 2013, I wanted to wish Happy New Year to you all. 2012 was a fantastic year for me personally, and for Online Centres Foundation as an organisation, but of course I’m confident that 2013 will be even better.

The debate is one that I’m sure will continue to rage, but it’s great to see 2013 kicking off with a point to the people. You can read the report here, and do let me know what you think.

It’s that time of year again – the internet is full of blogs celebrating the year that will soon be behind us, and for once I thought I’d follow the pack and do the same by rounding up some of my highlights of 2012 – of which there have been many.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

On Saturday, I had a good reason to celebrate – Online Centres Foundation turned one! While the journey to becoming a mutual seemed like a long one, the last year has flown by with new priorities, new projects and a great enthusiasm from everyone we work with.

Becoming a mutual was a huge achievement, but we’ve achieved so much more than we could ever have imagined in the last year  – running a fantastic conference just last week, in July hitting our target of supporting one million people to use computers and the internet, launching the new Community How To service and continuing to support our fantastic network of centres to bring the power of the internet to as many people as possible.   I remember vividly being sat at home at the dining table one evening last December, having to sign off our own payroll for the first time ever, and it really feeling like a proper start-up business. I can’t believe how far we’ve come!

One of the best things about being a mutual is just how invested every person within the organisation is in helping us achieve our aims – everyone can have their say and shape the services we deliver, which means everyone feels like they have a really important part to play in driving the organisation forward.  Of course I would say this, but OCF really is a great place to work – and it’s the team that we’ve really got to thank for it.

As a new social enterprise we’ve now got a Board too – with four staff members and six external members who provide us with advice, challenge and support. So thank you also to Jim Knight, our fantastic Chair, and to Gail, Liz, Nick, Pete, Roger, Simon, Vic and William our equally fab Board Directors.

The future is full of new opportunities, and I’m looking forward to all of the challenges ahead of us. Thanks to all of you who have supported us over the past year – and here’s to many more!