Designing for Civil Society

Centres' funding problems in the news

New Start Magazine today makes "Funding bubble bursts for internet skills centres" its lead story, highlighting the fact that Lottery funds for UK online centres are coming to an end. Austin Macauley reports:
"Hundreds of centres helping people in deprived communities to develop internet skills are facing an uphill fight for survival as their funding runs out.
"UK online centres were launched by the government in 2000 to help give everyone access to the internet. But with the initial £100m lottery funding running out, there is now no dedicated fund for the 6,000 centres.
"Those based in colleges, libraries and other venues are expected to secure money from their host organisations, but the future of centres run by community and voluntary groups is less certain."

Update from On the Nail, the mailing list for centres January 23
UK online centres alive and kicking
Following media reports last week about the disbanding of UK online for business a number of UK online centres have expressed concern. Ufi would like to stress to those operating UK online centres that the UK online centre network managed by Ufi and funded by the DfES is unaffected by this announcement.

UK online for business is a distinct offer for SMEs. UK online centres aim, by contrast, is to attract individuals who wish to learn about the internet and use government and other services online. The various press articles make reference to the UK online brand being axed. This reference is specific to UK online for business. In light of these impending changes Ufi has been discussing the future branding strategy with the DfES, DCMS and the Office of the e-Envoy over a period of months and for the foreseeable future it has been decided that UK online centres will continue to operate under the UK online centres brand. Any change to this position will of course be communicated to all UK online centres at the earliest opportunity.

Ufi is committed to the UK online centre network and believes that is has an important role to play helping citizens in England access and use new information and communications technologies. With a network of around 6,000 centres, helping an estimated 500,000 people a year, it will continue with its objective to increase internet access and raise IT skill levels.
http://www.helpisathand.gov.uk/news/2004/brand/

Would you advise this group to use Open Source?

Mark Walker , whose work with Sussex Community Internet Project I have mentioned before, has posted this interesting challenge to a few lists.

"Further to the debate about open source, several people have mentioned to us that SCIP should develop its use and advocacy of open source software and I am aware that if we decided to start adopting it seriously we would need to begin planning changes to our training courses and technical support.
"This is a difficult, sometimes controversial question to address and I think we would benefit some insight from different people - so I've set up a survey at surveymonkey so we can ask people what they think
"It's at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=9862357645
Now read on for the scenario Mark gives...

The well-connected community

Kevin Harris reports on his Neighbourhoods blog publication of The Well-Connect Community by Alison Gilchrist. This is very much about networks - but the non-tech local type, based on Alison's time as a community worker, activist, and later researcher in the field. Kevin writes "Alison's sensitive understanding of the nature of community development work at neighbourhood level, her experience and insights into networking, and her profound appreciation of the principles and values of equality and social justice, all make this a must-read."... and knowing Alison I'll certainly trust his judgement, and expand when I get my copy.

Ten traps for facilitators

Quoting the Top Ten Tools Open Source Tools for eActivism led to some interesting Trackbacks and set me thinking about non-electronic tools for engagement, and common issues that arise with online and offline processes. Here's some traps I have observed and fallen into myself. Comments, additions or contradictions welcome.

1 Believing one medium is enough. Online, print, face-to-face have different reach and roles. See also 4.
2 Using tools in isolation. They're important - but are only as good as the content, and the conviction or credibility of those involved. See 5 and also...
3 Thinking one event will do it. A workshop, online conference, alert, is seldom enough because people need time to reflect, bring in others, work things through. See 6.
4 Treating everyone the same. There are phone people and email people, face-to-face and (maybe still) letter people. Personality type, level of skill and confidence are (only some) other factors.
5 Under-estimating the importance of trust and reputation. People believe people, and who is saying it (or selling it) is often as important as what is said or offered.
6 Expecting quick results. See 3 - and also reckon to spend as much time on preparation as engagement. Then there's the follow through.
7 Forgetting WIIFM - the five principles of business (and engagement): what's-in-it-for-me. May be personal gain, fun, learning, altruism - sometimes. You can't know unless you ask.
8 Controlling too much. People's involvement usually stems from being able to contribute in their own way, and commitment come from a sense of ownership.
9 Controlling too little, and letting those with greatest facility in the medium dominate. Electronic loadmouths can be as bad as public meeting ranters.
10 Just pushing your brand. It's tempting to re-use what worked last time, or rely on a particular technique ... but people and circumstances vary, and it should be horses for courses.

Gathering stuff about blogging

I've started to gather stuff on 'what is blogging, how does it work' in a rather haphazard way. Here's some first links in the hope that it will throw up Comments and Trackbacks from those more knowledgable...
PC magazine provided an explanation of blogging and reviews blog tools, one on Wikis, and Guardian Online ran a special blogging feature also with reviews.
Ross Mayfield offers a Social Software Reader that covers a wide range of articles about software and also social networking.
Dave Pollard helps with Time Savers for bloggers - a list of 14 tips on how to scan more and keep up the output without blogging taking over your life. This includes reading less (choose the best blogs), focussing your interests, working with other bloggers to share the load and links. Most important - don't just react to items elsewhere. Give yourself time to ponder and think creatively. Earlier Dave reported his blogging process.
I reported the Selling Social Software event last year, with added links about use of blogs in nonprofits and corporations.
Simple explanation of RSS and newsreaders from CNN
Weblogs for Learning by Stephan Mosel
List of RSS readers by Aaron Swartz

Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism

Dan Bashaw and Mike Gifford have put together a terrific list of Open Source tools that can be used by activists to spread the message and promote interaction by enewsletters, forums, blogs, wikis and epetitions. They wrote an article for Steven Clift's excellent Democracies Online Newswire.
1.ActionApps (On-line Magazine/Content Sharing) http://www.apc.org/actionapps/
2. PostNuke (Slash Forums/Portals) http://www.postnuke.com/
3. Drupal (Blogs) http://drupal.org/
4. Active (News Posting) http://www.active.org.au/doc/
5. phpList (eNewsletters) http://www.phplist.com/
6. phpBB (Forums) http://www.phpBB.com/
7. WebCards (eCards/email2friends) http://webcards.sourceforge.net/
8. TWiki (Wiki/Group Documentation) http://www.twiki.org/
9. Back-End (eActions/ePetitions) http://www.back-end.org/
10. FPDF (eLeaflets/ePosters) (Dynamic PDF/Graphic Generation) http://www.fpdf.org/

Dan and Mike's article is licensed under a Creative Commons License so I have reproduced it in full below, and you can download a text version here. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the diagram Dan and Mike have provided to help you sort tools to purpose.

Nonprofit tech centres reach more 'excluded' users

Technology centres run by community and voluntary organisations are more effective in attracting socially excluded and digitally excluded users, according to research published by the key funder of the UK online centres programme, the Department for Education and Skills.
The researchers - Jeremy Wyatt and his team at Hall Aitken - recommend that "preserving the community and voluntary sector role should be recognised as a key policy goal"... which is important at a time when many centres face an uncertain future as initial funding ends.
The researchers add that: "Whatever the future funding regime, more funding should be targeted on the successful informal services that many UK online centres have developed to attract excluded groups and those not involved in learning"... which may not square with the Government's push towards reliance on mainly formal computer and Internet courses often more favoured by public sector and college-based centres.

Social capital and online networks

Researchers Sarah Cummings, Richard Heeks and Marleen Huysman at Manchester University have produced a paper examining "whether the concept of social capital can be applied to facilitate our understanding of online networks in development"

Making changes in messy systems

A lot of my work involves community engagement programmes, partnership processes or other initiatives where many of different agencies or interests have to collaborate towards some common goals if anything much is to be achieved. There's lots of stakeholders in the system... but all to often the more powerful agencies (and their consultants) act is if they could play God and just move everyone around. So surveys are done, analyses carried out, recommendations made, reports written ... and surprise, little changes. I suggest instead taking a "systems approach" - without really knowing as much as I should what that means. I can usually cover by proposing a game or simulation that helps people play through the options.

Democratic Evolution ... or Virtual Civil War?

E-democracy pioneer Steven Clift has posted (for him) an unusually pessimistic assessment of how business-as-usual politics may swamp the potential of the Net to re-engage people in political processes. He spoke on Democratic Evolution or Virtual Civil War? at WSIS , and in an email alert about availability of the speech says that in the context of US Presidential elections "The negative uses of technology in politics will tarnish all attempts to use the Internet to do good in politics and community."