Designing for Civil Society

Older people's mixed views on the Net

Research sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds limited interest in the Internet among older people living in sheltered housing. Perhaps not surprisingly, those interested generally saw it as entertainment rather than 'must have', and many needed help in using the Net. The JRF research, by Maria Sourbati in 2002, revealed ambivalence among residents about the Government's push to move services online, because of possible loss of traditional forms of provision. "Many saw it as a substitute for physical activity and human contact, and a threat of further isolation. Some felt that services enabling the continuation of everyday routines (such as shopping for food) or providing support (for example, transferring prescriptions) could be useful to homebound people."

Australian WSIS statement shock: understandable!

Thanks to Larry Stillman in his comment on the previous post for referencing the Australian Civil Society statement to the World Summit on the Information Society. I met Larry and some colleagues from Monash University when in Australia earlier in the year... so it is no surprise to find the statement - like them - user-friendly, clear and understandable. I couldn't get to their colloquium in Prato but hope to meet up again at the Brighton, UK, conference in March 2004. Or there's Prato (near Florence) again in September 2004. Who said the Internet could reduce the need for international travel? But then, I think the main purpose of community technology/informatics or whatever you choose to call it is to meet interesting people - really.
On that front, I'll be in San Francisco after Christmas, mostly on holiday, but if there's anyone like-minded interested in lunch Monday 29th, let me know david@partnerships.org.uk. Next year's resolution, be more ecologically conscious, cut travel.... join Tom Coates debate on whether you do really, really have to meet face to face.

Technology and Everyday Life: user-friendly version please

No sooner had I posted news of the HCI event Design for Life conference call than I found (via the CIRN list) that the European Media Technology and Everyday Life Network - objective to "investigate the realities and dynamics of the User Friendly Information Society" - has published its research. I know it's an easy shot at academics to complain about the impenetrability of their papers to other mortals, but when it is our taxes, and the subject is user friendliness, it would seem reasonable to ask for more understandable summaries. One of the main themes is inclusion and exclusion in the Information Society. Hmmm. How about accessible research findings as a start?

Boost for UK nonprofits infrastructure

Alongside the PreBudget Report yesterday, the first tranche of the £80 million investment by the government in England's voluntary and community sector infrastructure was announced. £6.25 million is to be allocated to support two themes:
- Development work, to improve capacity and communications in areas with very little or no voluntary and community sector infrastructure.
- "Exemplar" work, both nationally and locally, to develop ideas and proposals on building and sharing good practice, delivering support services in new and innovative ways, and redesigning the way services are delivered to improve sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness.
Home Office press release
Thanks for the alert to Voluntary Sector News

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.

mySociety plans really useful Net projects

Congratulations to Tom Steinberg for getting his "Civic Hacking Fund' - flown at the Bath workshop - off the ground. Well, into the pages of the Guardian, and recipient of a £10,000 first donation, which is pretty impressive for six weeks work.
Tom's ideas for funding civic society software are now now rebranded as charitable project mySociety.org. Tom says in the Guardian: "We are trying to bring together great project ideas, enthusiastic developers and visionary funders to produce cheap, effective services with a demonstrable real world impact. Projects are only limited by the need to have clearly positive social outcomes, and to have costs that barely increase when more people use them." The mySociety website provides a lengthy FAQ and opportunity to submit proposals. The winners will be announced late November. In the second phase mySociety will raise funds and build development teams. Tom cites UpMyStreet.com, FaxYourMp.com, Timebank.org.uk and LiftShare.com as examples of the type of project mySociety would like to foster.

Use the Beeb's tech muscle for your campaign

The BBC has launched iCan its own system allowing people to use the Net to take action on social issues... something pioneer activists have always focussed on but often lacked the funds and expertise to fly really successfully. As the site says "iCan is a new BBC service which aims to help people start doing something about issues in their life. You can find advice, inspiration, and a growing number of people able to help you."
The site launches officially November 3. Blog commentators like Louise Ferguson are applauding the initiative but musing how far it will get up the Government's nose if people really use the muscle of the BBC for direct action. As she says "iCAN is a bold move that seems in tune with the times. It's the kind of social software that government itself would be developing and using, were it to be truly interested in increasing participation in the political process."
Matt Jones, who worked on iCan, gives some of the rationale in a posting It's all about the tail

Rethinking Broadband Britain

The iSociety team have published their report Fat Pipes, Connected People. "Broadband Britain had a rough start. Well behind comparable countries in international comparisons, the UK’s road to broadband epitomised the confidence slump in the UK technology sector. But today things are looking up. Britain has over two-and-a-half million broadband subscribers – a number set to more than double by 2005, at which time the UK will have overtaken France as the second largest broadband market in Europe.This is because the supply side of the market – how to run, deliver, and price broadband – is working well.

Unfortunately there is a problem on the demand side. Some areas of the country have 100% broadband availability, but take-up could be faster. Now the industry must turn its attention to this issue and work out how to accelerate take-up further. This report attempts to do just that."

Social Networks blog

Keith Hampton - who worked on the pioneering Netville project with social networks guru Barry Wellman - has started blogging. See Keith Hampton's Homepage One project is E-neighbors - a longitudinal study of how new communication technologies can be used to build social capital in a neighborhood setting.
Kevin Harris, who gave me the reference, also pointed me to an excellent article on social network analysis by Peter Morville that ties together a lot of thinking on how people connect, learn and share. 'We humans are very social animals. It's about time more of us started recognizing this in the systems we design. "