For me, winter represents endless trips to the woodshed for yet another armload of firewood to keep us comfortable through the long cold nights. This year, it seems that spring has had many false starts, as if winter refuses to relinquish its grip. Nevertheless, the crocus, forsythia, tulips, daffodils and narcissus have all bloomed, reminding me that the work doesn’t end; it just shifts to mowing, painting and such. ICON also requires some work too, as we have several projects at various stages of completion.

I’m really excited about some of the things we have in the works for ICON’s future! Soon, we will be able to manage all our membership information electronically, from a single,
comprehensive database. This will allow us to add new members and update information for existing ones in real time, virtually eliminating the chance for mistakes in record keeping. It will also help each of the officers and committees to do a better job for you in a much more efficient, streamlined manner.

This infrastructure will also make it possible to offer everyone the opportunity to easily contribute to the overall support services ICON provides to each of us. As I’ve said before, many of the things we need help with can be done from the comfort of our home desktops whenever it is convenient for one of us to spend a few minutes working on it. Many of these jobs will require very little time or computer skills.

Mary Phillips, our newly elected Membership Committee chairperson, is working with a team of others to get ICON’s events added to public service announcements (PSAs) and
community calendars from various media outlets, including newspapers, radio and television stations. (This is one of the areas you could help with. Please contact Mary if you are willing to help). Doing so will increase public awareness of ICON’s existence, purpose, and community outreach services throughout Springfield and the surrounding area.

For years, we have wished for a standardized way to teach e-mail. That wish is finally coming true. ICON’s nonprofit status qualifies us to use "Google Apps" education edition. Google will provide us free use of "G-mail" accounts under our own domain name (iconusersgroup.org), as well as many other valuable tools.

We have been working on our Google account setup, and already have several people "beta testing" the chosen services (dubbed "ICON Apps"). As soon as we’re satisfied with the configuration and features, we will begin providing ICON members with an "@iconusersgroup.org" e-mail address. This will allow us to more easily teach the basics of using and managing e-mail, as well as helping others register and use the "Help Forums" on ICON’s website.

Along with e-mail, we’ll also have access to "Google Docs." Google Docs are online programs including word processing, spreadsheet, and slide show applications that each of us will be able to use. Because they are "Googley," we can also use them to share or collaborate with others on projects, regardless of whether or not we have additional office software loaded on our computers. Additional tools we can utilize to help one another will also be available, such as live chat and a very simple way to post our own personal websites.

While all of this may sound confusing, it is really quite simple. We’re making great strides in our efforts to provide more (and better) help for, and communication among, the members of our organization, which will in turn make it easier for all of us to learn and understand more about our computers and related technologies.

Spring has sprung, life is good...and ICON’s future is bright!

See you soon,
Terry