A London conference last week gave me a particularly rich crop of contacts and insights including London's new ICT champion, Microsoft's head of public sector innovation talking about why small is important, and reflections on what's changed in community-level tech over the past 10 years.
I wasn't surprised at how worthwhile Bright Ideas was, because the organisers were the London Borough of Newham, long a leading light in the application of technology for public benefit and in a few years the main local hosts for the 2012 Olympics.
One reason Newham has done well is the Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, has worked in the industry - and in his introduction he emphasised that it is only now that council procedures and services are being rethought and reorganised that tech benefits are being fully felt. Just adding new technology to existing ways of doing things isn't enough.
The keynote speaker was Dr Chris Yapp, who has been in the industry for 26 years, and is one of the few people who really knows what it takes to make things work in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Chris is head of public sector innovation at Microsoft, and he spoke about the importance of tackling digital inclusion, and doing so bottom up. That may be socially desirable - but why, I asked, is it important for Microsoft?
Chris's answer was that Microsoft's customers worldwide include governments - and those governments have to be able to deliver to all citizens. Full benefits of technologies only come when everyone can use them. Smaller countries, or states within countries, are able to develop faster and more flexibly than big bureaucracies - perhaps because the change processes needed can be faster.
I asked Chris whether small was also important for innovation when applied to companies. Yes indeed, he said, the Microsoft model was to work with many partners ... at which point the next presentation kicked in to the sound track. However, I think I did catch that Microsoft only employs 60,000 employees worldwide and has 800,000 partners.
The voluntary and community sector hasn't generally been in the lead in demonstrating the social benefits of new technologies: too busy with day-to-day challenges, too little funding, and maybe just a bit cautious about losing touch with people. That could change with the appointment of the ICT champion for London's nonprofits.
Miles Maier explained that he has the task of promoting projects to funders, particularly through an event in spring 2007 that will feature four or five good examples. Miles will also be promoting collaboration, and making sure a wider range of projects get noticed and share experience. He's started blogging, and hopes to encourage others in the sector to get beyond the basics and try Web 2.0 tools. Talking to Miles set me wondering whether small organisations might benefit from using more of the web-based applications spilling out of Google, Yahoo and others ... and listed here by category as an Office 2.0 setup. Maybe one of the project Miles could work on a nonprofit testbed of Web 2.0 and Office 2.0 applications, if he can find some London nonprofits prepared to have a go.
Dan Jellinek keeps us all up to date through the e-government bulletin, is organising the UK's premier e-democracy conference, and also finds time back home in Brighton to help with the local issues forum and the local community internet project, SCIP. I had a part in helping set up SCIP when I lived in Brighton, so I'm particulary glad that it survived and developed when so many other early projects have faded.
I asked Dan if - and how - he felt that the forum made a difference. Since councillors join in, there is potentially a direct link between concerns raised in the forum and possible policy development and action by the councils.
It was also a delight to get together with Richard Stubbs and Michael Mulquin, who I first met more than 10 years ago after I came back from the US fired up by the Ties that Bind conference about community networking. We started up Partnerships for Tomorrow, and ran a Communities Online conference in 1995 ... so it was inevitable that I should ask them what's changed ... or rather nudged Dan into asking the questions as I wielded the camera.
Both Richard and Michael emphasised how important it is to focus on people rather than just on the technology. It is people who keep projects going - as they clearly have in Brighton and Newham - and it is people and their very different needs we have to keep in mind as we develop tools and projects for their benefit. It's also people like those I met last week who make it worth sticking with it.
Hmm .. I don't know how I managed to miss this one!!
Posted by: Beth | January 09, 2007 at 05:00 PM