Participation culture: yes! But do tech and non-tech mean the same thing?

I used to find terms like participation and engagement used mainly by people in community development and public programmes. Their practice was - and still is - substantially around workshops and offline media, as I covered in a couple of guides a few years back. Even now, I find few of the practitioners are active online.  Trying to enthuse them about the potential of new tools and ways of working is difficult - though Lee Bryant and I had a go in our chapter for Involve's book on Post Party Politics.
Over the past few months, however, I've found a lot of online use of the terms. It's coming from technology enthusiasts promoting the role of new tools and open approaches in creating participatory, collaborative environments. There have been reports from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Cooperation Commons, and the MacArthur Foundation (pdf download), to mention only a few.
I find the reports by searches and reading blogs. Seldom do they find me - until now.
No sooner had I posted my piece today about facilitation, with a link back to one about participation as culture not tools, than I get an email from Steve Borsch at Connecting the Dots, saying that in view of those items I might be interested in a free online report his company has produced on the Rise of the Participation Culture.
As it happened, I've been reading Steve's blog for a few weeks and had bookmarked the report as something I must mention. If you wonder why people are excited about blogs, wikis, social networking, Web 2.0, Flickr, YouTube and so on it covers the whole lot, and explains "Web as the new normal".
The content is excellent, but in responding to Steve's email I did say I found the format - long web pages, no download - a bit challenging on a laptop. I don't print much, but I would like to print this one (and I suspect less-online participation practitioners certainy will. Some of my best friends print emails ... and file them)
Steve responded saying the format was much debated, but they went for the only-online in part to make sure there was "a single version of the truth". It is, in itself, an interesting conversation starter with less-online friends. Me: Look - free, always up-to-date, links to other resources, easy to expand, use it to start online discussion. Friend: but I can't read it on the train. Me: well, with wifi and a laptop ... Friend: wasn't all this meant to make life easier?
Next report: engaging the techno sceptics. The Bamboo Project has made a great start in their piece on Engaging Nonprofits in the Tech, or as I put it Moving from Wow to how, sparked by Nancy White's piece on Second Wave Adoption.
That's enough. I can hear my less-tech friend in the background asking ... this participation culture is all very well, but do you have time to do anything else except write about it? Of course. I'm just off to talk about it with others at the first meeting of the London Social Media Club. Then I can blog about that, and link to all the other people blogging about it. That's participation, isn't it?
Update: Steve Borsch e-mails to say that folllowing prompts from a few dozen others, a pdf version of the Rise of the Participation Culture is now available as a pdf (6M download). Much appreciated ... that's service!

Comments

[Sandra Dickinson]

One of the greatest virtues I see of the rising "participation culture," and the Web2.0 tools that enable such participation, is the capacity to simultaneously elevate the expertise of each individual and illuminate the value to each of us otherwise hidden in our collective knowledge.

My theory is that together we all know what each one of us needs to know, at any point in time, for application to any purpose.

I wanted to let you know what I'm up to because I believe we have alot in common regarding how communities can collaborate to accomplish a common goal.

I recently launched a wiki at http://selearninggames.wikispaces.com and its companion blog at http://selearninggames.wordpress.com. Places for social entrepreneurs to make an elearning game together that will solve the mystery of earned income venture profitability.

Another one of my theories is that making a learning game together might be a FUN way for social entrepreneurs to use web2.0 tools to discover strategic meta-pattern solutions to our common problems hidden in our collective experience.

I invite you to check out my wiki and blog. Let me know what you think. Please feel free to share this invitation with whomever and however you feel appropriate.

[Michael Wood-Lewis]

On participation... the leading edge of technology users get lots of attention and are the ones contributing most of the Web 2.0 content... but what of the other many billion folks out there?

We've got a new service underway in Burlington, Vermont USA called Front Porch Forum that's trying to engage beyond the early adopters. We provide online forums for neighborhoods... with several twists. Our mission is to help neighbors connect and foster community. In our first three months 5% of local households signed on. The most active neighborhoods have 80% of the homes on board. Some members make remarkable claims about how the service has elevated the sense of community in their neighborhoods.

It's fascinating to watch low-end internet users join this service and contribute... because most people care about their neighborhood and are interested in getting to know the people around them. Many just see this as a neighborhood newsletter, and, in fact, would be scared away by a wiki, blog, mail list, etc.

We also have a new blog reporting and discussing all we're doing and discovering. We welcome comments!