Designing for Civil Society

New research network

David Brake reports a new academic initiative in London to bring together graduate students and other researchers interested in the Internet and Development.
Recently a group drawn from seven countries announced creation of a formal Community Informatics Research Network... so interest in the field appears to be growing.... among academics anyway.

Surprise: few of us use technology effectively

There's some perverse comfort in the iSociety report on technology in UK workplaces ... twelve months of research and eight case studies shows that highly-paid executives and private sector staff are struggling. So it isn't just nonprofits - who can't afford the latest kit and training - who have difficulty as others have found. The Guardian reports that in the past, the technology industry made big claims for the productivity gains its products would bring. "But technology is not transformational on its own," says iSociety co-author Max Nathan. "The rhetoric of solutions you hear from the technology industry is particularly corrosive. It implies that you can just stick this stuff on the desk and things will start changing."

New mailing list and reports on social capital and ICTs

Will Davies of iSociety has posted papers and notes from the recent conference in Seville on social capital and information and communication technologies, and also started a Yahoo group.

Early news of two civil technology books

Doug Schuler based in Seattle (US) , and Peter Day In Brighton (UK), have managed over recent years to combine both academic and practical work on community and social uses of new technologies. Doug has just posted to an number of mailing lists the contents of two books forthcoming next year.

Does technology matter much to planners? Should it?

This week I've had a chance to check out how far the ideas of Bill Mitchell and others linking town and country planning to technology planning reach into the realities of local planning.
I've been running public workshops with colleagues to help people influence development of a regional plan that will effect housing, transport, environment, economic development and a host of other issues. What has surprised me (but probably not others) is how little new technology featured in the discussions.

WSIS - what's that?

The run up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which starts in Geneva next month, has for some time provided a focus for debate and lobbying about civil uses of new technology. Those involved in local community networks and similar projects can add ideas and expertise gathered at previous events in Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Montreal organised under the banner of the Global Community Networking Partnership (GCNP). There is also an associated Platform for Community Networks with many thoughtful articles and news updates about WSIS issues in several languages. However, the problem (for me anyway) is that if you are not closely involved in the arcane processes of international summits it is difficult to fight your way through discussion of Prepcoms, Declarations of Principles, and Plans for Action to get to stuff most people can understand. This would seem particularly important when much of the discussion is about how global information and communication technology developments can further disadvantage disadvantaged sections of society. I was therefore glad to learn from the Guardian that the British Council has assembled a team of young journalists to run a blog about WSIS - the Daily Summit. Hopefully they will tackle the who, why, what and how of WSIS in terms we can all understand.

Journal issue on Designing for Civil Society

Andy Dearden and Steve Walker - who organised the workshop that sparked off this blog - are co-editing a special journal issue for publication in November 2004. It will cover "the challenges of designing systems to support democractic participation in civil society.
"Democratic participation is not merely an issue of electronic voting, but also of campaigning, organising and participation in policy formation through a wide variety of groups."

Bill (Mitchell) explains how the Net augments reality

I don't think many people bought the idea of cyberspace as some new, really different, yet virtual reality. That was mostly a US 'new frontier' notion. Yet there's growing recognition that the Internet changes lives and places just as telegraphs, telephones, gas, electricity, road, rail and other networks have in the past. William J. Mitchell explored just how the Net changes where we live in City of Bits (1995) and e-topia (1999). He returns to the theme in his new book Me++ promoting the idea of 'augmented reality' (AR instead of VR) in which, as he explains in Guardian Online today, ubiquitous computing and mobile wireless networks are used to reconnect us to the real world. We should no longer think of ourselves as 'fixed, discrete individuals' but as nodes in a network. As Jim McClellan writes in the Guardian, 'Mitchell's approach is hopeful (rather than hype-ful), a world away from the glib futurology that dominated writing about technology over the past decade.' Certainly more to my taste than the other Bill, and I'll be going to hear William J. at his Tate Modern lecture on November 19 at 6.30.

Would you walk to get e-Government?

For the past few years Government capital and Lottery revenue has funded several thousand UK online centres helping people learn computer and Internet skills, and in some cases develop online projects. Now that funding is running out, centres are looking for new streams. One idea is to provide access to e-Government services - not least because centres are generally located in poorer neighbourhoods where people are less likely to own computers with Net access, and may well be high users of benefits and other services increasingly online. Sounds obvious... but wait, would YOU walk, or spend money on travelling, to a centre rather than make a phone call? Should you have to?
These and similar issues are being discussed by one of my favourite online controversialists (or perhaps sensibilists) Horace Mitchell and others on the Communities Online conet list.

Music downloaders buy more... as do throw-away Italians

The joint BT and University of Essex e-living project has released preliminary results of a two year research project. One conclusion appears to counter music industry concerns about free downloads by those who can afford to pay. The main beneficiaries seem to be the unemployed. Another insight is that "Italians have more new computers and throw away more ‘new’ computers "
The report is downloadable as pdf here ... or read on...