Here’s the highlights of apps ready for you to make the most of in your business or organisation, some we didn’t have time to mention either – so have a good look through!

First, here’s a great video from Hyatt Hotels on how they use iPads

Evernote -  is an easy-to-use, free app that helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Stay organized, save your ideas and improve productivity. Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders–and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, at work, or on the go.

DropBox Dropbox is an excellent backup app that automatically syncs files across multiple computers, and offers you remote file access and sharing. It also doubles as a PDF- and document-reader.

iAnnotate PDF An app to annotate over existing content. Take notes on  slides, annotate important business documents, revising screenplays, grading papers, and much more. For tasks requiring robust annotation and file management, iAnnotate is the only app you need!

Paperdesk PaperDesk is a simple, easy-to-use notebook replacement made specifically for the iPad. The entire design goal behind PaperDesk was to mimic, as closely as possible, a simple pad of paper with no unnecessary frills. Yet it still boasts features that enable quick and responsive note taking.
PaperDesk allows you to keep a “Desk” full of your notebooks

Expensify – Use this app to sync with your credit cards and bank accounts to track purchases as they happen. We’ll even pull in eReceipts, digital copies of the paper receipts you normally have to carry around, for most purchases under £50.

For any purchases that are made with cash or are not eligible for eReceipts, turn your phone in to a receipt scanner by snapping a picture of the receipt! This app will scan the image and pull out the merchant, date and amount of the transaction. This will use this information to either create a new cash expense or attach the receipt to it’s matching credit card purchase.

OmniGraffle – Need to create a quick diagram, process chart, page layout, website wireframe, or graphic design? With OmniGraffle, your iPad touch screen is your canvas (or graph paper, or whiteboard, or cocktail napkin…).

OmniGraffle knows what makes a diagram different from a drawing, so it knows how to help you make superior documents quickly: it keeps lines connected to shapes even when they’re moved, it provides stencils full of objects for you to drag and drop, and it can magically organize diagrams so your ideas come to life.

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

WebEx – Tap into WebEx online meetings, wherever you are! With this iPhone application, you can easily attend, schedule, and start meetings. Don’t just listen in, join in!

DocuSign for iPhone and iPad uses the #1 electronic signature service to let you manage all of your document needs right from your iPad or iPhone. More than just a ‘signature stamper,’ DocuSign for iPad and iPhone allows you to:

SEND documents for signature from your iPad from Google, Box, or even from the camera on your iPhone or iPad.

How refreshing to start the new year with Social Enterprise right in the spotlight and the ability to talk with true passion about our work here at Cosmic and the massive potential we have to take our business forwards. Its only been 16 years since we considered this was the right, no the only way of doing good business …. Patience is a virtue they say! (and if you’re reading this Sir Richard, our phone number is 0845 094 6108)

Why aren’t other business leaders moving in this direction more quickly though? Branson describes the book as “the story of my seven-year journey towards realizing that, while business has been a great vehicle for growth in the world, neither Virgin nor many other businesses have been doing anywhere near enough to stop the downward spiral we all find ourselves in.”

Cosmic has been very proud of its status as a social enterprise right from our early days. We’ve always believed that doing great business involves developing successful products and services, providing top quality employment opportunities, but at the same time achieving real and meaningful social impact. For over 16 years now we’ve been working in this way and have achieved not only a truly sustainable business model, but we’ve also delivered digital support, training and advice to thousands of people who would otherwise have gone without. For us bringing digital inclusion to the fore continues to be our major objective – making sure that people who are disadvantaged in their use of modern digital technology to improve their lives, economic situation, learning and communications.

Our involvement right from the start in the Social Enterprise Mark and being able to provide real credibility and evidence to our work has meant so much in recent years, particularly given the rise of pseudo-social enterprise and ‘corporate imposters’. For us the Mark means we do what it says on our tin … And we’re proud of that!

Our current Government has learned to use the language of social enterprise, and many others are looking our way for learning and inspiration. Whether Charity, Public Sector, SME of voluntary organisation – evolving into the model of social enterprise we believe is a great next strategy. We’d be happy to help.

More recently Cosmic has worked on the support and training of others in social enterprise through our Leadership programmes. We’ve made a major impact in over 30 organisations where the development of high quality leadership skills will go on to mean even more effective work by these social enterprises.

So if you don’t already know about our work then please contact us for more information. We are seeking to develop some brand new opportunities, ideas and collaborations in the year ahead – aimed simly at making more of our work, delivering more employment, more social benefit. Simple as that.

Now stands before us such a brilliant and majestic opportunity – what if all business worked this way? What if we can demonstrate how we’ve done things at Cosmic and you want to help us do more ? … Look forward to hearing from you soon.

As a small festive gift from Cosmic, we’ve collected our favourite Apps of 2011. We hope they inspire, become useful tools or maybe just provide a bit of fun over the festive period! Cosmic’s Top 10 Apps of 2011

1. Good Reader – connects, opens and reads word docs and pdfs quickly and easily. Read magazines and publications without any hitches. The clever thing about Good Reader is that at the push of a button it turns the ipad into a USB stick – so you can upload and download easily!

2. Look out – worried about losing your phone or ipad? This app will automatically find your phone, connect to it and wipe it if you need to. You can also send a signal and will sound a shrill alarm to alert you of its whereabouts.

3. Buzz Player – a brilliant app that will play any sort of media, MP3, AVI, DIVX, XVID on ipad and iphone. It will also allow streaming across networks

4. Fring – talk to people across platforms –it’s like Facetime or Skype but allows video calling and conferencing cross platform so works on calls Android, iphone and ipad.

5. Photosynth – who would have thought that one of the great iPhone apps this year would be developed by Microsoft? It’s a great app that captures panoramic 360-degree gyroscopic images simply by activating and moving your phone camera.

6. Flipboard Flipboard creates a personalised magazine out of everything being shared with you. Fill Flipboard with the things you like to read, from the smallest blogs to publications, all your social networks, including Facebook and LinkedIn and you’ll have a single place to enjoy, browse, comment on and share all the news, photos and updates that matter to you.

7. Google Translate this language translation app from Google excels above all others for its ability to audibly translate spoken words into other languages.

8. Santa’s Big Helper we couldn’t resist adding this one in for the festive season. It will create a video of Santa in your home that you can show your children. The app also lets you create letters from Santa and a naughty or nice list for your children.

9. My Fitness Pal one for the new year – a great free app to help you keep fit and count those calories

10. Let it snow! Not an app – so if you don’t have a smart phone or ipad – here is one for you – just type in ‘let it snow’ into Google search and enjoy the display. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all If you have an urgent problem during the holiday, call Kate on 07543 650764. We look forward to working with you in 2012.

Its been several years now since I started to understand the work he has been doing in Bangladesh and the developments at Grameen. Any readers who don’t know about their work then please find time to read and watch -

http://www.grameenfoundation.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwLjb63q3Yk&feature=player_embedded
http://vimeo.com/24935201

With such clarity of vision, determination, resilience and passion for the change he can make in the world, Professor Yunus is one of the shining stars of social business and has proven just how much potential the model has now and well into the future.  Grameen now has developed a range of social businesses on the back of its innovative work with Danone Communities – which in itself provides brilliant examples of how large corporate business and local social impact can be achieved on a massive scale – you can read more about that here -
http://www.muhammadyunus.org/images/stories/in_the_media/GDFL_BP_210510.pdf

During discussions yesterday Professor Yunus made it clear just how far he wanted the innovations in this joint venture to go – by challenging Danone first to come up with fully biodegradable packaging for the yoghurt products, and since then he has been back to the Danone laboratories and development centre seeking to progress further – to a fully edible container. In his words “if we can do it with ice creams, then why not with youghurt”.

To celebrate, Devon County Council are offering FREE IT sessions and demos delivered by Cosmic IT.

Wednesday 23rd November 2011, Dunkeswell Village Hall 

10.30 until 12.00 – Let’s Get Started 

Did you nod off in the last episode of Downton Abbey? Do you miss family and friends who live far afield? Can’t think what to cook for dinner? Drop by for a friendly chat to find out how I.T can resolve these niggling irritations and make life just that bit easier.

12.00 until 1.00 – Satellite Broadband demo

1.00 until 2.30 – Introducing Social Media for Business

There has been an explosion in the use of Social Media. This presents a huge communication opportunity that no  business can afford to miss. Find out how your business can harness the potential social media has to offer.

5.00 until 6.00 – Satellite Broadband demo

6.00 until 8.00 – IT for Parish Councils and other Committees 

A session, to which all are invited, focusing on computing within committees and parish councils. The session will cover managing communication on line, tips and tricks to make meetings easier and sharing of documents and information on line.

We look forward to meeting you.
For more info, please contact
Cosmic – 0845 094 6108
talk@cosmic.org.uk

Welcome to the September edition of Cosmic Source.

Happy hour dates are announced, Some great special offers on hardware and yes, we mention Christmas too, but only to help you think about your Christmas communications and how we can help!

Happy Hour starts 9th November

The Happy Hour club is an exclusive FREE club aimed at helping Cosmic’s customers and friends keep up-to-date with the world of IT and digital marketing.

We’re working with the East Devon Business Centre who are kindly hosting the events for us, so please note the new dates as follows.

The Club will offer free hour-long briefings on a wide range of subjects, the first three are listed here.
• 11th November  – Social media inspiration – find out how social media is working for other businesses and organisations. Get inspired by small and big businesses on how they have grasped the nettle, engaged their customers and received amazing results.
• 9th December – Microsoft 365 vs Google Apps. Find out what cloud computing is, how it could work for your business and which supplier is winning the race.
• 13th January – Under the skin of Google – find out the latest updates and news from Google +, SEO updates and other new applications.
Our first Happy Hour Club starts on Friday 11th November starting at 3pm – 4pm, sign up today here http://bit.ly/mJQLdL

Christmas is coming!

We know it is early, but now is the time to be thinking about sending a postive message to your members or customers this year by sending personalised e-christmas cards. Better for the planet and your organisation – no need for printing delays and save on postage costs.

Choose your card from our electronic Christmas Card pack, type in your message and send out through our E-sender system. It’s easy and fuss free.

And the great news is you can use the system for future e-newsletters too.

£25 + Vat plus e-sender costs (£4.50 for 100 sent and 1p per email thereafter). To sign up for the service, email pete@cosmic.org.uk .

Sadly we can’t virtually stuff the turkey or put up the decorations for you too!

Laptop special offer

We are currently offering Dell Vostro laptops for £350+Vat.

An amazing offer for a Core i3 processor with 2GB RAM, 320GB hard drive and up to 8 hour battery life, web cam and biometric reader.

The offer is limited so call us on 0845 094 6108 before Friday if you are interested!

Staff news – wedding bells and sad farewells

Our Chief Executive Julie Harris gets married this week to her long term partner Neil. Julie Harris will become Julie Hawker.

And, after two years, Tim Evans is leaving Cosmic, he is returning to education where he was a primary teacher.

Tim joined the team after being a house husband to support his two young children, he has always missed teaching and following his workshop experiences with Cosmic he wishes to return to support and encourage young people.

Tim has been a digital mentor with Cosmic supporting hundreds of digitally excluded people in rural areas of Devon to get online and inspiring many hundreds more through workshops and seminars.

SitesPlus and SWChambersOnline

New sites live this month include the following; there is certainly a rural theme and they have really maximised the designs well. We warmly welcome them to our SitesPlus community
www.tastymusic.org

www.country-bumpkins.com

www.follycottagedevon.co.uk

www.unionjill.com
We have recently finished our SitesPlus development session, and will update you at the next e-newsletter. Be prepared for Social Media integration, E-news integration and much more!!

The new Pioneer programme with the first specific degree-level qualification for Leadership in Social Enterprise, has been developed across the past three years as is the result of so much hard work and perseverance from Cosmic and its partners at Rise, SEW, CEMVO and also our partners in Finland at Syfo and others who have been key to its development and support (too many to name individually). Its such a massive development for Cosmic to have led this work; not only has it been a complete diversification from our ‘business-as-usual’ (ICT) at the time, but it also represents the best about our business – a reaction to market forces matched by social impact. We could spot how much demand for this learning there was in other social enterprises and we knew that great leadership would result in multiplier effect over the years to come.

In these times with so many challenges, clear and successful leadership from social enterprises in the UK (and globally) could make such a major impact. In fact, I can’t think that there has been a better time for us to push forwards with strong and credible approaches to the challenges which are now clear to all. From social unrest and growing divides in our communities; financial instabilities and continued worsening of the jobs situation; massive environmental issues which despite so many calls to action have remain largely un-tackled.  We all know the models and best practice in social enterprises which have addressed such issues (and if you don’t know them then just ask and I’ll send you some links!)

From the pilot work completed 2009-2011 we could identify that our ambitions and objectives were proving correct – here are some of the people involved as leaders in the pilot programmes –

Erica Steer, who was recently awarded ‘Student of the Year’ for her assessed work on the level 5 programme, of Devon Guild. You can see a short video of Erica’s thoughts about the programme here.

Keith Davies regards Pioneer involvement as a very personal journey from developing an initial idea for a new social enterprise delivering work and training opportunities for people with particular challenge around employment (young people, long-term unemployed, ex-offenders). This began as Erlestoke CIC but is now developing into the newly formed Right Time Foundation,  complete with strong brand and new structure. Keith has used the learning from the Pioneer programme to completely re-model the business and to bring it from a small enterprise mainly based on volunteering, to an employer of over 50 people in just 2 years. Keith was able to relate how much the learning modules had helped him to bring the business side of his enterprise truly into action through good leadership. A memorable comment from his final presentation – “you don’t run good business through a Committee”….

Shabana Kusar of the Sky Project and her experiences and learning through the programme which have included lots of self-development opportunities, making the most of the chances for experiential learning. Shabana shadowed Mona Siddique to observe leadership, specifically in a leader for muslim women, and this included attending a conference in Rome at which Mona delivered the keynote speech. Shabana then decided to extend her learning further by taking a visit to Singapore and specifically to how social enterprise had developed around eco-business. You can read more about Shabana and her decision to join the programme here.

Anne Malindine of Southville Centre in Bristol worked on the programme with her organisation and used the learning from the Pioneer programme to review leadership across the team, but also Anne maximised the opportunity to continue her own personal development journey and reflected strongly on the ways in which she led others both in her team, but also in wider community and the social enterprise movement – something she is very keen to find more opportunities to achieve in future. The project team was so impressed by the ways in which improvements have been achieved at Southville through Anne’s leadership style – ensuring that shared leadership promotes the support for all in decision-making situations, and working to improve engagement, empowerment and ‘ownership’ and key concepts for the organisation. She also gave the hint of further social enterprise concepts she was now developing to bring even more social impact and return some of the ‘community wealth’ to its proper place.

James Mapstone of 2nd Chance Project  describes how having chosen to apply for a place on the Pioneer programme he had been able to use the workshops and the peer group as a way of developing a much clearer understanding of social enterprise and how he wanted to provide leadership for 2nd Chance and its wider partnership. James’ journey into social enterprise came from his work in the Prison Service and has resulted in the set-up and success of 2nd Chance which provides training, support and rehabilitation services for ex-offenders. During the Pioneer project he made a visit to the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco and this provided a clear aspiration for James and his team in terms of how future developments at 2nd Chance will aim to provide a wider, bigger and stronger approach to rehabilitation and life-long support.

For more information about the Pioneer Programme visit www.pioneerprogramme.org.uk , download the course information pack and the application form here.

Cosmic’s autumn series concentrates on helping businesses and organisations get the most out of Online Marketing. Improve your visibility in Google, find best ways to advertise online and join the Social Media revolution – all before Christmas!

All day courses £50 a day.

STOP PRESS**** FREE places available  Attendance to one workshop of your choice is free of charge for individuals, organisation or businesses based in Devon.

Subject to grant criteria (which includes over 19 and and EU resident and not in receipt of SFA funding) and workshop space.

Places are limited so register your interest by filling out the form.

Book online today or call us to find out more 0845 094 6108

Courses delivered at Cosmic HQ in East Devon Business Centre, Honiton within easy reach of the A30 and train station. Find us www.cosmic.org.uk.

Contact us on 0845 094 6108 or email talk@cosmic.org.uk

Anyway, all mis-timed programming schedules put to one side, what about those Dragons and their misunderstanding or misinterpretation of Social Enterprise. Last night’s episode certainly didn’t let us down on that score – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013c6z1

We had two separate mentions of social enterprise, the most clearly misinterpreted was in reference to the DJ Academy proposal – more of which you can read here

http://blog.djandmcacademy.com/

Peter Jones explained that he really liked social enterprise, but had no intention of investing in it as a Dragon. Why not? What is it about investing for a return and at the same time seeing real social impact happen that he doesn’t get. Theo Pathitis then went on to explain unlike Mr Jones he would invest in social enterprise, but not this one as its to owner focussed – what the heck does that mean?

We really do need to do more in raising understanding of what social enterprises are in the real business sense and helping people to clearly articulate and be proud of being one.

To make that happen I challenge someone to get to the Dragons Den and make them understand it clearly – and invest of course!

Julie Harris