On neighbourliness, real and virtual

There's quite a few things I've got scattered around to blog about, and I'm not going to get them done properly before going away for a week shortly ... so at least I'll put down some markers and plan to return later. Maybe a strand will emerge. Here goes.
My friend Kevin Harris now has Respect in the Neighbourhood published  - trailed here and here on his blog. He and the other contributors spell out why neighbourliness matters:

What happens if people stop recognising and talking to their neighbours? Why do nods across the street and comments about the weather matter? Ideas and evidence in this book suggest that if people stop being civil to one another where they live, a perceived crisis of respect in wider society will probably follow.

Kevin is one of too few people I know who manages to combine grass-roots insights, from his community development work and everyday life, with rigourous research and conviviality. You can trust the guy knows what he is talking about.
On a rather different front I'm trying to keep up with the growing flood of stuff about how nonprofits can use social media, because I'm putting together a guide for the NCVO Foresight team.  Fortunately the second (or something) law of internet research and sharing is kicking in ... which means that if you leave something for a bit someone else will do it for you. So Michelle Martin of the Bamboo Project Blog has started a Web2.0 and Nonprofits Best Practices Wiki which Beth Kanter has promised to contribute to. I've got the beginnings of wiki started too, and Beth and I are doing a workshop in January, so it should all join up.
Dave Pollard, who I interviewed when he was in the UK recently, has now posted a summary of the presentation he gave when in London, showing which social networking tools work best for what.
Nancy White is such a rich resource I know if I miss something on social media and online communities I can always go and find it with accompanying wisdom on her blog. She's looking at roles and is going to start tagging technology stewardship which, as I've mentioned before sort-of ties in with my ideas on being a social reporter.  I noted recently that Nancy is starting some work with Shawn at Anecdote (another favourite place) on three types of collaboration - team, community and network. I'm particularly interested in the idea of network collaboration which, as Nancy says:

... steps beyond the relationship centric nature of team and community collaboration. And this is where it gets interesting. Network collaboration starts in individual action and self interest and accrues to the network. Membership and timelines are open and unbounded. There are no explicit roles. Members most likely do not know all the other members. Power is distributed. This form of collaboration has been busted wide open with the advent of new online tools, a response to the overwhelming volume of information we are creating and number of people we can connect with. The tools both expose us to possibility, remind us of the overwhelming volume and offer us ways to share the task of coping with that volume.

Definitely messy, but potentially really rewarding if fresh insights and creativity come from crossing over boundaries and doing stuff with new people. My friends and I at Policy Unplugged are planning a series of events and online activities next year to do just that, so I'm delighted Nancy and Shawn are working on it. By the time we need it, they'll have worked it out.
I hope network collaboration will also be one of the practices that Bev Trayner and I will be developing on projects following on from some initial transnational work here. Bev is starting a new company called Eudaimonia for reasons that she explains here:

Although some people have translated Eudaimonia as happiness, it means much more than that. It's about flourishing and a complete life, manifesting in characteristics like courage, honesty, pride, friendliness and wittiness. It also includes friendships and intellectual knowledge. It connects human nature with reason, emotion, perception, and action in an ensouled body.

... which promises well for any network collaboration.

Meanwhile Nick Booth alerts me to something completely different on his Podnosh blog ... a competition to win a Sony PS3 and support young homeless people. Nick says it isn't his usual interest, but came from an acquaintance he wants to help, and it will in mysterious way drive traffic to our blogs by getting more attention for the competition link. Nick is another social reporter type, so I'm glad to help out even if I'm not too sure how it works.

I've also been meaning to check what happened to another fundraising project Nick mentioned, where Micki in New Zealand set up a blog called Volunteer Evolution.

She is using it to ask people to help her raise $20,000 dollars to allow her to stop paid work and instead volunteer for a year in her local community (wherever she happens to be).

Nick contributed a month ago, wondering if he was being a virtual mug. Hmmm. Micki says only £80 raised, but 40 volunteers hours logged, so I leave a donation and encouraging message because ... well, I couldn't do what Micki is trying and the blog is getting interesting.
On the other hand the previously-mentioned Beth Kanter, prolific blogger and parent to two Cambodian orphans, has more than succeeded in a fund-raising campaign to provide a college education for Leng Sopharath through the Sharing Foundation. I guess the lesson is that networks work. Congratulations Beth ... and let me have your Getting Things Done tips sometime.
I should also report that I had the promised lunchtime conversation with staff at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, about how social media could help them tap the collective intelligence of their 26,000 Fellows. A great whirl of conversation about, well, promoting conversations in many different ways. Good things are going to happen, particularly around the Carbon Limited campaign that challenges us to reduce our carbon footprint not least by reducing use of home energy, cars and flying.
Phew. Writing up those different strands makes me feel better. Why? A few references made to friends I felt were due ... a few lines thrown out that may bring back comments ... a few things ticked-off the to-do list. There's so many reasons to blog - which reminded me of an item at Bamboo on Why Blog that led to the graphic here (click to enlarge)and a fuller report at CK's Blog. Those that responded to her survey were mainly marketers - but the central theme is finding a Voice which I can relate to. Who was it said that I don't really know what I think until I write about it? Me certainly. Or maybe, as Kevin might say, it's just about being neighbourly in the online world.
Update: I couldn't let this go ... the latest Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants has a round-up of Web 2.0 How-Tos and Examples. The Carnivals are a great way of pulling together good blog posts on a subject. There's a request for posts, you pitch yours in, the host filters the best. Unlike physical bring and buy, for example, no money changes hands, you keep what you give. You could just wait for the next one to come around to solve your research needs ... but on the other hand a good post might get you in the window. Another example of how the online neighbourhood works.

Comments

[Cindy]

Neighbourliness.

The past 2,3 years in NL, where I live, this topic comes up again and again at quite a few TV programs. The politicians even included in our recent election. Loosely translated -- respect and values.

We ask what have happened to our country? Our society? There are many reasons of course. One of them is immigration where some societies have different human values. But I think our values have deteriorated due largely to TV and other form of communication technologies. That the past 10, 20 years or so we put TOO much emphasis on technologies and materials goods, and we ignore what human is made of.

Perhaps this would be a nice topic for research or discussion: The Influence of communication technologies on Civility. This topic has been nagging me for the best part of 6, 7 years. The media/digital world might have given us many advantages, but it seems to destroy human sensitivity. Perhaps there are just too many bad examples shwon on TV such as all the 4-letters word strewing all over the place, physical violent, abusive behaviours ...

And now we are moving away from TV to computers/internet. Moving away from centralized QUALITY control into the hands of decentralized mode. The chaos.

[Michele Martin]

Interesting comment, Cindy. The Knight Foundation is currently running a competition to fund projects that examine the issue of how cyberspace and social media can support and develop physical community. Their point is that while people are making a ton of new connections through the Internet, how can we translate these into community and action within people's physical communities? I'm in the process of developing a proposal for them as I think this is a really rich, interesting area to explore. It's good to see that someone is thinking about this side of the equation, too.