Designing for Civil Society

mySociety plans really useful Net projects

Congratulations to Tom Steinberg for getting his "Civic Hacking Fund' - flown at the Bath workshop - off the ground. Well, into the pages of the Guardian, and recipient of a £10,000 first donation, which is pretty impressive for six weeks work.
Tom's ideas for funding civic society software are now now rebranded as charitable project mySociety.org. Tom says in the Guardian: "We are trying to bring together great project ideas, enthusiastic developers and visionary funders to produce cheap, effective services with a demonstrable real world impact. Projects are only limited by the need to have clearly positive social outcomes, and to have costs that barely increase when more people use them." The mySociety website provides a lengthy FAQ and opportunity to submit proposals. The winners will be announced late November. In the second phase mySociety will raise funds and build development teams. Tom cites UpMyStreet.com, FaxYourMp.com, Timebank.org.uk and LiftShare.com as examples of the type of project mySociety would like to foster.

Use the Beeb's tech muscle for your campaign

The BBC has launched iCan its own system allowing people to use the Net to take action on social issues... something pioneer activists have always focussed on but often lacked the funds and expertise to fly really successfully. As the site says "iCan is a new BBC service which aims to help people start doing something about issues in their life. You can find advice, inspiration, and a growing number of people able to help you."
The site launches officially November 3. Blog commentators like Louise Ferguson are applauding the initiative but musing how far it will get up the Government's nose if people really use the muscle of the BBC for direct action. As she says "iCAN is a bold move that seems in tune with the times. It's the kind of social software that government itself would be developing and using, were it to be truly interested in increasing participation in the political process."
Matt Jones, who worked on iCan, gives some of the rationale in a posting It's all about the tail

Rethinking Broadband Britain

The iSociety team have published their report Fat Pipes, Connected People. "Broadband Britain had a rough start. Well behind comparable countries in international comparisons, the UK’s road to broadband epitomised the confidence slump in the UK technology sector. But today things are looking up. Britain has over two-and-a-half million broadband subscribers – a number set to more than double by 2005, at which time the UK will have overtaken France as the second largest broadband market in Europe.This is because the supply side of the market – how to run, deliver, and price broadband – is working well.

Unfortunately there is a problem on the demand side. Some areas of the country have 100% broadband availability, but take-up could be faster. Now the industry must turn its attention to this issue and work out how to accelerate take-up further. This report attempts to do just that."

BT free WiFi trial offer

BT this week press released news of a package bundling home broadband, home wireless networking, and access to the Openzone 'hot spots' set up in airports and elsewhere (if you have a wireless card in your laptop). I've already got BT broadband, but it took me the usual frustrating web search and three phones to various BT numbers to find the right sales team. No reference on the press release... do these guys want to sell anything? Anyway when I was eventually transferred to the right person he was helpful and knowledgable despite me being his first customer. The deal is you get three months free trial, then it is 20p a minute.

Goodbye Wired Up Communities, hello civic KM

How do we move from a "give-em the boxes and wires" approach to social uses of technology to something driven by understanding the information and communication tools and content people need? What's the "something" if it isn't access and computers?
Three years ago the UK Government invested £10 million in giving 12,000 homes in seven communities computers and support "to test how making ICT accessible by putting it straight into people's homes can help overcome the digital divide". The Wired up Communities project was unashamedly tech-driven, and is providing useful lessons through the evaluation process. But we won't see the model rolled-out more widely. Yesterday I revisited SCIP, a project in Brighton and Hove, that is pioneering a different approach. Our conversation led to ideas of "civic knowledge management" as the "something".

Social Networks blog

Keith Hampton - who worked on the pioneering Netville project with social networks guru Barry Wellman - has started blogging. See Keith Hampton's Homepage One project is E-neighbors - a longitudinal study of how new communication technologies can be used to build social capital in a neighborhood setting.
Kevin Harris, who gave me the reference, also pointed me to an excellent article on social network analysis by Peter Morville that ties together a lot of thinking on how people connect, learn and share. 'We humans are very social animals. It's about time more of us started recognizing this in the systems we design. "

Is email broke?

The other day I was comparing notes with my US colleague Terry Grunwald and musing just how far overload and spam is making email less and less useful. For some purposes, said Terry, 'email is broke'. The respected Pew Internet Project now confirms that hunch with a substantial report.
"The huge increase in email spam in recent years is beginning to take its toll on the online world. Some email users say they are using electronic mail less now because of spam. More people are reporting they trust the online environment less. Increasing numbers are saying that they fear they cannot retrieve the emails they need because of the flood of spam. They also worry that their important emails to others are not being read or received because the recipients’ filters might screen them out or the emails might get lost in the rising tide of junk filling people’s inboxes."
Thanks to Mark Gaved for the reference, now reported up by the BBC.

UK IT forum for nonprofits meeting again

Joe Saxton has announced a new round of seminars for UK community and voluntary organisations developing online systems, starting November 3. Joe and Caroline Pile put a lot of effort over the past two years into a Task Force aim at raising Government interest in support for nonprofits, but stepped down as chair last May - apparently frustrated at lack of progress with the Active Community Unit at the Home Office. It's good to see he is able to re-convene the Forum that has been a useful chance for organisations to learn from each other.

UK government backs DIY rural broadband

Two UK Government departments are providing almost half the funds for a £130,000 initiative to support community rural broadband intiatives. Ruralnet UK and the Phone Coop will run an information and advice service under which pioneering social enterprises providing rural broadband will help other communities get started with wireless and other technologies. Stephen Timms MP, Minister for e-Commerce and Competitiveness, confirmed support at the Ruralnet|2003 conference today.

Open Source Democracy... at length

Demos is launching Open Source Democracy by Douglas Rushkoff on Friday October 10 - details here. "From the postings of Dear Raed in Iraq to Howard Dean’s ‘Blog for America’ campaign, from the urban street reclaimers of the anti-globalisation movement to the emergence of smart mobs, new media gives new meaning to self-organising politics." You can download the full publication here with a forword by Douglas Alexander MP. The first page says, in large type, "Political structures need to change. They will emerge from people acting in the present, not talking about a fictional future". After that it is a pretty heavy 70 pages. I wish Demos would help by providing a summary so you don't have to choose between squinting at the screen for half an hour, or sacrificing another printer cartridge.