Designing for Civil Society

Not getting it may be a worldview thing

When people are unenthusiastic about social media and other Web 2.0 stuff it is tempting to be a bit sneery and say they don't "get it". Who can fail to see the benefits of publishing without publishers, and organising without organisations? The tools may take a little getting used to, but surely they are worth trying in pursuit of a better world?
Maybe for you, but not necessarily for them. It could be people do get it and don't like what they see, because your world view isn't theirs.
If they say We can't do that - and they mustn't do it either, it may be a reflection of organisational culture - or something deeper about the way thing work.
I remember a few years back reading an excellent piece by Jack Martin Leith about worldviews, and writing, in the context of participation and e-democracy:

He suggests it is important to understand whether we - and others - are seeing our world (organisation, neighbourhood, group) as a mechanism, a set of changing relationships, a system, or something even more organic and inherently messy. As he shows, that influences the sort of techniques professionals may use when they intervene.

So when knowledge management guru David Gurteen sent out a World 2.0 newsletter the other day I had Jack in mind.
David wrote:

Most of us understand what Web 2.0 is all about as we move from a read-only web to a read-write or participatory web.
And we are starting to come to grips with so called Enterprise 2.0 where the concept and technologies and social tools of Web 2.0 are moving from the open web into organizations.
It is still early days and there are many issues to be grappled with as we try to balance the structure and stability of the old world with the more fluid and complex nature of the new.
But the "2.0 meme" is starting to affect everything. In a talk in Kuala Lumpur I was asked how you implement Enterprise 2.0 and I was talking about some of the barriers when someone spoke up and said "We will never have Enterprise 2.0 until we have Managers 2.0!” In other words it was managers and their out-dated mind sets that was a major barrier to change,
And a few days later while giving another talk at the National Library in Singapore I found us talking about Libraries 2.0 and Learning 2.0. It then hit me that “2.0” thinking was permeating everything. People were also taking about Business 2.0 and Education 2.0.
So what does this mean in its broadest sense? Well, we are no longer consumers: of goods, services or education - we are all prosumers - we all have the opportunity to create and consume. For the first time we are participants in everything and not the “victims”. Fundamentally it is about "freedom".
We are moving from a world where we were told to do things and where things were structured or planned for us to one where we get to decide what works best for us. We are moving from a mono-culture to a highly diverse ecology.
We are moving from a simple world to a rich, complex, diverse one. One where power is less centralized and more distributed. We are moving from a command and control world to a world where people can do as they please within the boundaries of responsibility.

David offers a neat little World 1.0/World 2.0 chart.
And while I'm thinking about this I see that Jack has spotted it as well, and blogged his own piece, paying tribute in the process to David's excellent knowledge cafes and generous knowledge sharing. Very definitely a World 2.0 person.
Perhaps nudged by David's piece Jack has updated his own mid-1990s Worldviews, 1, 2, and 3 article which is now here. As a taster, here's Worldview 2.0:

Worldview 2 is the emerging worldview. In this scheme of things the world is seen as an ecosystem. These are some of the main features of W2:

* Effective when the environment is complex, turbulent, unpredictable
* Organisational life is governed by democracy and self-management
* Plan-do-review
* Adult-adult relationships (interdependence)
* “Create what you want” mindset
* Innovation through creating value for the whole system
* Beyond the metaphor of “the future is a place, change is
a journey”

The W2 worldview is based largely on complexity science and the various branches of systems theory, including the cybernetics of Gregory Bateson.

This is in contrast to Worldview 1:

Worldview 1, in which the world is seen as a huge machine, has been the dominant worldview for the last 300 years. These are some of the main features of W1:

* Effective when the environment is relatively simple, stable and predictable
* Organisational life is governed by bureaucracy and command-and-control
* Plan then implement
* Parent-child relationships (dependence)
* “Problem solving” mindset
* Innovation through tools and techniques

The W1 worldview is based largely on reductionism (attempting to understand reality by studying its constituent parts), a mechanistic view of the world and a limited, linear model of cause and effect.

Jack is a terrific Open Space expert, committed to helping people come together face-to-face and ...

.... discuss issues of heartfelt concern, share ideas, pool knowledge, reach agreement on the best way forward, and develop plans for collaborative action.

He - and others using similar methods - demonstrate that you don't need Web 2.0 to develop World 2.0 - though it does extend what you can do out of the room, and a bit more. What you do need for World 2.0 is people who are prepared to be open, collaborative - and recognise that life is messy. If you wish to explore:

• Free downloads from Jack Martin Leith
• Free downloads from David Gurteen
• My guides to participation, partnerships and social media and networking

Technorati Tags: worldview

Climbing out of the walled garden

As I remarked the other day, there's a number of new platforms wishing to claim they are the Facebook of the nonprofit sector, or generally suggesting they are the best place to be online. They often go for the old-style model of creating a "walled garden" behind a login, staking out territory in ways that reflect the competitive and territorial style of those anxious about retaining their membership and so their funding.
It was refreshing to meet up last night with the team behind the new UnLtdWorld site, which is taking a different direction. Yes, you do register, login, fill out your profile and start communicating with others within the system. However, as this slide full of logos show, the aim is to create a "collaborative ecosystem" whereby it is possible to join up with other systems in order to get content in and out.
I was at the launch event for the site, and sound levels didn't really allow for detailed technical explanations, though you can find some here. I was able to talk to both Alberto Nardelli, the Social Network Manager who directed development with the team from Curverider, and with the Chief Executive of Unltd, Cliff Prior. As Cliff says in his profile:

UnLtd is a charity which supports social entrepreneurs who live in the UK - people with vision, drive, commitment and passion who want to change the world for the better. We do this by providing a complete package of funding and support, to help these individuals make their ideas a reality.

I first invited Alberto out into Weston Street, underneath London Bridge Station, hoping for some quiet ... but found we were on a bus route. The lighting was pretty bad too. However, he and Paul Henderson of Ruralnetonline managed to carry on a conversation started inside The Bridge club.

Click to play

I later found a quieter spot to talk to Cliff, where he provided a convincing account of how UnltdWorld may - with its open approach - be able to achieve something others could not on their own. One of the great strengths of system is that it is rooted in offline networks of social entrepreneurs developed by Unltd over the past few years.
Click to play
On joining the system, I didn't at first quite understand how best to use it, because I was looking for somewhere to blog or otherwise makes substantial contributions. Cliff explained I really needed to fill out my profile more fully in order to connect with others of similar interests.
Then there's the "shouts" - postings limited to 300 characters. Short for a blog item ... but aha! think of it as a long tweet, the 140 character items you can post to Twitter. Social entreprenuers like to do more than they talk.

Technorati Tags: puppy, unltdworld

Challenges and opportunities for civil society (or whatever we may be called)

Just what to call yourself if you are organising to do good stuff for social benefit is quite confusing these days ... but at least we know what challenges and opportunities lie ahead thanks to a summary from NCVO Third Sector Foresight. Pestilence, famine and war are there in various guises, but so too are the potentially positive uses of technology, and different ways of organising. More on those later.
First to what doing good should be called. The other day Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of NCVO, the umbrella organisation for UK nonprofits, was musing about a change of name for what is currently known as the voluntary and community sector. These organisations may also be known as the third sector (as in not public or private). Some are charities (about the only term widely recognised by those not in the business), and the more entrepreneurial are social enterprises. It can be difficult to spot the difference between charities that have an entrepeneurial trading arm, and socially responsible businesses that may have an associated charity.
Charity Finance reported:

NCVO chief executive Stuart Etherington has ambitions to augment the power of the voluntary sector voice by harnessing the whole of civil society, not just charities and social enterprises.
In an interview with Charity News Alert, Etherington outlined his future agenda for the organisation and the sector – “I would hope they are parallel” – and signalled his desire to boost the sector’s influence over public policy by widening its net to include all of civil society and by establishing a 50-member civil society assembly.
Etherington refused to be drawn on whether he could foresee a day when the NCVO would rename itself the ‘National Council of Civil Society Organisations’, but confirmed the organisation was “keen to encourage a debate about how the sector defines itself”.
“I prefer the term civil society because it is more inclusive and defines us in relation to those we work with and for, rather than to government or business.”
He also admitted to seeing merit in recasting the Office of the Third Sector as the Office for Civil Society, an idea first proposed by the Conservatives as long ago as 2001.
An early indication of the new agenda has emerged in the name of the 2008 Almanac – the NCVO’s annual study of the state of the third sector. Instead of ‘Voluntary Sector Almanac’, this year’s edition is to be renamed the ‘Civil Society Almanac’, and will for the first time include data from organisations such as trade unions, universities, housing associations and political parties.
The NCVO also plans to establish a 50-member assembly that will debate civil society’s response to pressing public policy issues. The assembly will mostly comprise representatives from within the voluntary sector, nominated and then elected by NCVO members, but provision has been made for ten of the 50 to be co-opted.

I believe that the idea of an assembly is a response to NCVO-member pressure more involvement in policy and direction, and I'll be interested in how it turns out. It's a fairly old-style mechanism of representation which might lead to the usual problems of uncertain governance, where people aren't sure whether the assembly, forum, council or whatever it may be called is the focus, or the board of trustees. Maybe it will be OK if Stuart and NCVO staff see their organisation as a network which is permeable rather than closely-bounded, and encourage continual conversations between members, staff, assembly-members and others as well as having some formal meetings.
As I mentioned above, the challenges and opportunities facing whatever we may be called have been highlighted by the foresight unit at NCVO. Megan Griffith reports on a seminar at the NCVO annual conference where a panel of speakers debated the ‘burning issues’ of climate change, bridging communities and the ways in which young people are associating.The session began with a presentation from Lenka Setkova, who took everyone through the findings of the Carnegie UK Trust’s Inquiry into the future of civil society in the UK and Ireland. You can download the report here. It is a terrific piece of work, but unfortunately only available, a far as I can see, as pdfs, which rather stifles online conversation because it is difficult to link or quote.
All the more useful then that Stuart Etherington invited seminar participants to discuss the presentation, and then assemble their own set of messages as risks/challenges/threats, opportunities, questions, and calls to action. You can see the whole list here, but here's the interesting calls to action:

• Civil society should define and exemplify new models and patterns of growth. Growth is not always good. Extra extra extra is neither equitable or sustainable – let’s look for ‘infragrowth’. The negawatt (energy saved) rather than megawatt (energy generated).
• Civil society needs to embrace online spaces more effectively, more often, mainstream it.
• VCS must revisit history and become the advocates for our liberties.
• If we could make growing older a positive experience we would at the same time find universal solutions for social coherence.

I'm glad to see a potentially positive role for technology and the online world in there, and I'm look forward to exploring that further with Megan and colleagues, who I've worked with before. I'm also taking some comfort from Stuart's renaming process that this blog's title may have increasing relevance. It was all a bit of an accident, as you can see here.
Previously

• Creating futures for the common good
• Foresight site offers strategic insight
• Nonprofit leadership means networking, socially and openly
• Re-inventing membership online and off

Technorati Tags: foresight, ncvo

Pitch up for social innovation camp

Paul Miller, Dan McQuillan and Christian Albert have given us first news of their plans for Social Innovation Camp in London, when ideas people, geeks, mentors and sponsors will gather for a weekend of intensive co-creation on April 4-6:

Innovation happens when diverse groups of people get together - individuals who can bring something different to the mix and help each other to look at problems in a new light.
We’re interested in creating unexpected collaborations between people, organizations and networks. The Social Innovation Camp will be an opportunity for all participants to meet people who think about things differently to them.
The weekend will be designed with this principle in mind. Social Innovation Camp will bring some of the best of the UK’s web designers and developers together with those at the sharp end of social problems. Throw in some people with the business and organisational knowledge needed to make things happen and we’re hoping to come out with some innovative solutions to enable social change.

Ideas for your innovative project have to be in by March 7, and you are told by March 17 whether you are successful. These projects are then developed collaboratively over the weekend:

Pitch your prototype. We’re hoping that by the end of the weekend you’ll be part of a group with a basic working model for a new venture. The event will close with a pitching process which will include some prizes for the winning pitches.
Start your venture. Social Innovation Camp is all about creating the relationships needed to start new projects and we hope your ideas won’t end with the weekend. We’re currently thinking about the best way to help you pursue your venture – or if it’s more appropriate, find someone to take it on for you. More on how this will work coming soon.

I think we are now seeing several different approaches emerging on how nonprofit organisations may use social technology (building on old structures) ... or how we can collaborate to do good stuff using new stuff (which is likely to mean developing new structures).
These different - maybe complementary - approaches were evident last year at the Newman Arms get together which I reported here. Some people were interested in enhancing the capability of existing community and voluntary sector organisations, others felt a new direction was needed. Dan McQillan - of the social innovation camp team - made it clear he felt charities are broken and later trailed the innovation camp idea.
Meanwhile there's still a lot to do helping existing organisation deal with the basics of computer and internet use. I'll be hearing more about that when I run a workshop with Laura Whitehead, Nick Booth and others at the UK Circuits Riders conference at the end of this month. Circuit Riders provide tech support to small organisations.
Earlier this week I went to a new Forum for Circuit Riders in London organised by London Champion Miles Maier. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the whole session, but from the interesting stories of what life is like on the front line I got confirmation that there is a big stretch between the visions emerging from Web 2.0 social innovators, and groups still struggling to network their office computers. Are they left to struggle on their own as funding for technical support from Circuit Riders becomes more problematic - as seems likely? Should they just budget tech costs in with phones, print, rent and other overheads - and concentrate on convincing funders of the need for this in core costs? Should Circuit Riders pitch some innovative ideas to social innovation camp? Maybe time for a Newman Arms session.

Technorati Tags: nptech, nptechuk, sic

Are charities broken?

Dan McQuillan, who has an impressive track-record of online innovation with Amnesty and other nonprofits, is now saying openly what others are muttering: the charity model is broken for many cause-related purposes.
He said this briefly at a recent get-together for a possible UK version of Netsquared, aimed at promoting web-enabled social innovation.
He has now filled out his thinking in a blog post advocating seedcamps for social innovation. These are competitive-collaborative events where entrepreneurs meet investors and mentors.

Dan writes:

I've heard quite a bit about seedcamp  and it's high octane approach to incubating web innovation. I wonder if the same model could be applied to social innovation? For sure, we need some new methodologies, because it looks like the old way of organising into charities and NGOs is broken.

UNDERMINING INNOVATION
At first sight, seedcamp is a purely business proposition, mentoring startups on competitiveness and providing injections of venture capital. What's that got to do with alleviating social problems?  But compare and contrast with the characteristics of many charities. In my experience, the amount of innovation that makes it out of the door of an NGO is a tenth of what it could be. And the limiting factor isn't rigerous testing of ideas against reality, but institutional conservatism. Anyone who's worked in the sector knows the score; anxiety-based leadership, a focus on internal politics, inter-departmental struggle and an unquestioning conflation of the issue and the organisation.

CATCH UP OR CATCH 22
But charities don't own social issues. And it's lazy behaviour for the rest of society to assume that bunging charities a regular donation is actually good value. We'll see what happens as more sousveillance and web-enabled transparency is applied to the third sector.  The web-savvy minority in nonprofits know that it's urgent for their organisations to catch up with the digital age. "If only the CEO would blog more, if only our campaigners understood facebook..." But are these the core issues? Or is the starker question that the inherent nature of charities as institutions makes them anithetical to the participative and post-deferential nature of the social web?

ROUTING AROUND BLOCKAGES
Personally, I'm more excited about the new modes of collaborative innovation  opened up by the web, and how these can be powerfully applied to solving social issues . I don't just mean web tools themselves, but the wider social modes and processes opened up, from the virtual organisation to crowdsourcing, and from open IP to self-organising networks. There are already examples of NGO startups; GetUp systematically applied the accidentally viral success of MoveOn  to the Australian third sector, and in six months had more members than Amnesty Australia. So if we want to encourage social innovation that leverages these possibilities we need ways to incubate it that are native to this space rather than native to the nineteenth century. Roll on, social innovation seedcamp.

I think Dan is right in doubting whether adding new social media to old models will work, as I wrote here when the Government announced plans for a Third Sector innovation exchange. We need a different approach - and Simon Berry, I and others, tried promoting that through an Open Innovation bid for the innovation exchange. We didn't win, but the process give us some insights into what a different way of doing things might be like. More here about the "official" innovation exchange that's now up and running.
I'm fascinated by the idea of an innovation development process that would mix seedcamp events, online exchanges and many other elements to really put some buzz behind different ways of promoting and supporting social action. I think it's what Matthew Taylor has in mind for the RSA, as I've covered in posts here (scroll down to start at the beginning). But can you innovate successfully from within such a venerable structure, or does the internal change process sap so much of your energy there's too little left for the real work outside? Dan has been brave enough to pose the question. More ideas please.

Technorati Tags: innovation, nonprofit, nptech, nptechuk, rsa

Announcing UKGovweb barcamp - with an open invite

Whitehall Webby Jeremy Gould, whose day job is web manager at the Ministry of Justice, is making a very direct contribution to the promised new politics of Government-citizen collaboration: he's inviting us to help transform government by sharing expertise in the use of social media tools.
Jeremy's Ministry is responsible for the Governance of Britain initiative, which underpins Gordon Brown's enthusiasms for promoting engagement, as I outlined here.
Jeremy has just announced a get-together in January for anyone interested in innovation online as applied to government. Although it is billed as UKGovweb barcamp, and mainly aimed at people in or near to government,  the wiki page offers a pretty open invite to enthusiasts:

This event should be of interest to all who work in the UK government digital media community: permanent civil servants, contractors, consultants, agencies, advisers, supporters, observers, and critics.

Here's the full post:

Announcing UKGovweb barcamp:

Those of you who read this blog regularly, or get cornered by me in the real world, will know there are two things in particular that I am particularly passionate about

* clarity around government online strategy, and
* how to innovate online, especially piloting the use of social media tools

I think these are important issues for government webbies (and by government, I don’t just mean Whitehall but right across the public sector). Talking to colleagues I know that these issues important to them too.

I’ve been talking for a while with colleagues in the transformational government team (they who are driving the website rationalisation / convergence, and other related, initiatives) about how we can harness the collective knowledge and intelligence of all those with an interest in improving how government does all this web stuff. Its becoming more important as we start to explore the possibilities and opportunities of government online beyond our corporate websites and intranets.

My proposal was to run a barcamp event, where those who want to participate in  developing ideas, sharing their expertise and swapping tips can come together as a community. For those not familiar with the barcamp concept, check out the wikipedia page. The key point is that you come if you have something to offer and you participate, rather than simply observe.

I’m delighted to report that they agree, so I’m pleased to seed the message here that we aim to have the event run across the last week of January 2008 (Saturday 26th/ Sunday 27th). I say ‘aim to have the event run’ because it will only work with the input, energy and enthusiasm of the participants. We have suggested a proposition and date, we’re hoping that enough people will want to be part of this to come along and also to help organise the event.

A page has been set up on the barcamp.org website. Please visit it, and sign up if you want to be part of this event.

If you know others who might be interested, let them know about it. In particular, if you blog then please point your readers to the page on the barcamp website.

I really do hope that together we can work together to get a common sense of purpose, and share some innovative ideas about government’s approach to all things online.

Maybe I'm wrong to make a direct link to the Governance of Britain/new politics initiative - and the barcamp is strictly apolitical - but I find it incredibly heartening when a civil servant goes that bit further to practice emerging policy, and notions of openness. At a weekend too.
Disclosure: I have done some consulting for MoJ, helping civil servants use this engagement design game. Maybe barcampers would like to play too.

Technorati Tags: socialmedia, socialtech, ukgovweb

Control can quench collaboration: let's talk about it

A couple of workshops I ran recently reminded me that amidst enthusiasm for the opportunities for engagement and collaboration that social media can bring, organisational culture and systems are likely to be a strong inhibitors. The first hurdle may be language.
In both workshops I was working with groups to play through different versions of the social media games I have developed with Drew Mackie. In each case we started by inventing some possible situations - scenarios - where social media could be used for engagement or collaboration, and then went on to use packs of cards to choose a mix of tech and non-tech methods.
Members of one workshop were marketing and communications specialists working in the education field, and they wanted to think through (among other things) how "chip shop mums" could be persuaded to offer their children better diets; how people could be encouraged to challenge yob/hoodie culture (is there a better word?); how children being taught at school might enter the state system.
In each instance - as far as I could see - action would depend upon parents and citizens deciding to do things differently. They would probably be more persuaded by people they knew than by official exhortation. Not only would they need to engage with the issues, they would need to collaborate.
However, the seminar framework within which the workshop discussion was taking place was "identify your audiences, clarify your messages, choose your channels, set your targets, develop a plan".
The groups were choosing social media tools like MySpace, blogs, video, identifying possible champions to use them, but perhaps not realising at first that once you go down that path you can't control what happens. You have moved from the world of media megaphones to one where "The Audiences" are no longer the receivers of content; they are the producers.
Of course, that's always been the case in situations where people can chat to each other ... whether at the school gate or in the chip shop queue. Social media increases the reach, amplifies the organisation-instruction/personal-conversation gulf.
We talked a bit about that at the wrap-up of the session, and there were lots of nodding heads, so I'm sure, as they say, it will be taken on board. I must check in and see what future social media communication plans look like.
The other workshop was with tenants and leaseholders of a large housing organisation, where the community development staff were keen to explore how social media could help people not only get better services, but also participate in forums and other activities even if they were spread across south-east England.
We had great fun a their conference this weekend inventing situations that ranged from flooding putting out all centralised systems, to online advice systems and organising childcare. Groups then had no difficulty working out what might be done - because those in a group that weren't too sure what a blog or wiki was, got help from the others.
The director of IT joined in and added some bright ideas ... but over lunch was rather more circumspect. The problem was, he said, we would need to work out how to support and manage these new systems. There would need to be some control.
Of course, that was clearly the case when the new services had to be integrated with those already provided by the organisation. But these days there's nothing to stop a group of residents setting up their own communication systems using free or low-cost web services ... and I sensed that this might initially bring furrows to some brows.
The discussions that would then be necessary within the organisation - perhaps between community development staff and service providers - would probably be a replay of others over the years about how far people should be consulted, engaged, trusted.
Again, I think things will work out. As I was leaving, and chatting to staff organising the event, I raised this possible tension. "Oh don't worry about that", they said. "We don't hang about. We just set up our own wikis for collaboration, and get on with it".
While the two workshops reminded me of the control and culture issues raised by social media, they also confirmed that a good way to start dealing with them is to get together in groups and talk about it. Nice to have clients who recognise that ... which reminds me of another point.
In an exchange of emails after the first event my client contact said she thought that the game had been really useful, and she would be using it to help plan a communications network for a group of education institutions that really needed to collaborate more effectively. My first thought was, hey, how about involving me. But then I reminded myself that I had said the games were Creative Commons licensed and could be used and remixed if then put back into the public domain. That's the thing about social media stuff, once it's out there, you can't control it.
Report of an earlier workshop on using social media for engagement, and one on social media in housing.
If you are interested in an insider view of how the UK government is grappling with social media, you can do no better than read Whitehall Webby Jeremy Gould. He reports on how the Foreign Office is embracing Web 2.0 under Ministerial blogger David Miliband. That's the other lesson, of course. A bit of old-style leader is needed if you want to cut through the barriers ... and good to see that it will be more than him with the blog in future. You can find FCO blogs here.
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Giving the camera to someone else

Click To Play
Last week I was at an excellent knowledge cafe about video run by David Gurteen, where Brad Meyer, of I-T-L, was telling us about his work. He had used video to bring together two groups of people who otherwise had difficulty communicating. 
I was fortunate enough to be sitting at the table with Brad, and since I had my camera with me, I wanted to capture something from him directly. But the session was about how the introduction of video cameras to a situation made a difference to the dynamics of communication. So why just talk about it ... why not do it? 
I handed the camera to Jason Bates, of Beaufortes, who was sitting with us. I didn't give Jason any warning, but I think we ended up with a better interview than I could have done - plus some observations on how the experiment had changed the nature of the conversation. At Brad's suggestion, I also used a very simple technique to get Jason's persmission to use the clip. Watch the end and you'll see.

Technorati Tags: gurteen, socialmedia

New media innovation exchange, anyone?

As I wrote earlier, there's a lot of buzz around social media in the UK nonprofit world, but not yet much joining up. These days that needn't mean formal coalitions - just a preparedness to share knowledge and help those new to the field. How might we do that?  Perhaps through an innovation exchange for the use of new media among nonprofits.  I've just posted this over at the Open Innovation Exchange.

I've been looking through the nominations for the New Statesman New Media Awards**, and I'm blown away by the range of interesting online initiatives there, ranging from the governmental to the small group and individual.
The Open Innovation Exchange has been nominated, and of course we are all hopeful that we'll get recognition for the open process we used to bid for the Cabinet Office contract, even though we failed. (No official news of the winner, though I did hear unconfirmed rumblings that the lead within the third sector may be ACEVO rather than NCVO).
The aim of the awards is to "celebrate UK new media projects that benefit society, government or democracy," and this year the categories are Contribution to civic society; Modernising government; Elected representative; Education Information and openness; Advocacy; Young Innovator. You can see last year's winners here.
I know some of those nominated - but not about many others, even though I try and scan the field and write about it here. It strikes me that awards are great for flushing out interesting initiatives, and rewarding them after they have achieved something. However, awards aren't generally designed to encourage start-ups, or help them learn from more experienced initiatives. To do that we would need .... ummm ... an innovation exchange!
The main Third Sector Innovation Exchange, once established, will no doubt provide an excellent service across the major activities of nonprofits in the UK. However, I believe that the sector could do with a special boost in it's use of new media, where in my experience there is a big gap between the type of innovations featured in the New Statesman Awards and many of the rest. Maybe a New Media Innovation Exchange could help make some links between the various European and UK initiatives now emerging, and open up learning to a wider audience.
How would we get that going? Why, run an open process of invention, of course. Anyone interested, please drop a comment below.
** I'm on the awards judging panel, but not for the Modernising government section where the Open Innovation Exchange has been nominated.

Apologies if this appears to be shameless lobbying for the role of open innovation. I know my fellow judges will be totally dispassionate, rightly suspecting we may well do it whether or not we get an award.

Technorati Tags: awards, innovation, nptech, openinex

Social media for social change - time for Netsquared Europe?

In Another shout for a Netsquared Europe Steve Bridger offers a round-up of initiatives to promote and support the innovative use of social media for social change. Nonprofits in the US are better organised, particularly through Netsquared, which runs events, awards, aggregates blogs, and develops its community in many other ways too. Steve writes:

Amnesty's Dan McQuillan has made a rallying call for a Netsquared this side of the pond - which could be an "incubator for web-enabled social change in the UK & Europe"
Dan identifies some possible goals:
* To stimulate web-enabled social innovation
* To create a an online-offline community for learning skills, sharing experiences and developing expertise
* To sustain socially progressive activity through alternative business & organisational models 
I like the emphasis Dan gives to "activism", and "the organisational question" in particular ...
"Perhaps, like the second Netsquared conference, it could aim to incubate a new generation of web-enabled non-profits that use new forms of organising to deliver more directly on their missions."
There is a very real tension between where social media is taking us and how charities are responding (although there needn't be).  Web 2.0 requires Leadership 2.0.  Surely two sides of the same coin.
All this may well dovetail with the initiative soon to be unveiled by Bertie Bosrédon, the Head of New Media at Breast Cancer Care.  Bertie gave me an update earlier this week.
Yesterday, I happened to get a call from Richard Saunders, who is head of website development at NCH, the children's charity. He also hinted he would welcome a forum along these lines.  And Rob Bowker at the BTCV has flagged his interest to me via this blog.
I also know from many of the conversations I had in Brussels last week that there would be an appetite for this elsewhere in Europe, too.  Paolo Ferrara left a comment on my recent Buzz Director post to let me know that they are starting to unpick this concept in their own Italian context.

I should think that the Technology and Social Action project might be interested, as well NCVO's ICT Foresight team on the policy front. The challenge, I suspect, will be to organise in a way that mirrors the open architecture of social media. I've been a little sceptical in the past, but this sounds far more promising.

Technorati Tags: nptech, nptechuk, web2.0

Reinventing the RSA together

The venerable Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (est 1754) has a good chance of becoming one of the few membership bodies that combines a great range of face-to-face events and lectures with sociability and knowledge-sharing online, harnessing both to make-a-difference external projects.
Last week's RSA seminar about the social impact of the web - reported by Robin Hamman, Simon Dickson, Andrew Brown - was interesting in its own right. Just as interesting for me was confirmation from chief executive Matthew Taylor that the RSA is launching a major programme to network the 26,000 members (known as Fellows), as I trailed last year.
The head of marketing and communication, Susan Butler, is leading an exploration into how best to do this, including a major event in October when the whole of the RSA HQ will be used by staff, Fellows and well-wishers for creative sessions to help design what's appropriate.
I believe my friend Steve Moore, at Policy Unplugged, is involved, so I'm confident it will be fun and productive. I met Susan for a chat and enthused about the scope for using workshop games to play through possible online systems, as described here.
However, what really made me feel it could all be rather special was the number of smart online people I met at the seminar who were saying ... the RSA seems to be an interesting place .... I was thinking of joining up. That's in addition to those who are already Fellows. Subscriptions are fairly modest at £135 a year.
If Matthew, Susan and others involved are prepared to make this a fairly open process, drawing on expertise of current and new Fellows, the RSA could fulfil its promise of becoming a real collective-intelligence think tank.
I do have one slight reservation. As I understand it, at present the aim is to network the Fellows somewhat independently of the staff. That's probably with the best of intentions, so we feel some independence from the institution, and ability to develop new ideas and projects. However, I think that assumption - if correct - should be reviewed. Instead of an old-style staff-volunteers-members mentality, how about thinking of the RSA - and its wider relationships - as one big system of knowledge and creativity, within which people can mix and match around their interests and activities. Matthew's Blog is called "The view from the 4th floor ..." while Fellows are most frequently found socialising or studying in the bar and library in the basement. I think it's time we all met up in the same space.

Technorati Tags: knowledgesharing, rsa, socialnetworking, socialtech

Voter apathy? Try TheirSpaces

A traditional voters' complaint about politicians is they never turn up until there's an election, then they are all over your streets and doorsteps, expecting you to turn out for them. It's a bit unfair, since traditional communication methods don't enable even the most diligent to be in lots of places at once, except perhaps on special occasions with much dashing about.
That's now changing, at least for MPs and other representatives prepared to embrace new media ... and tonight the Hansard Society gave a number of speakers the chance to explore the implications of the Internet for political awareness, participation and trust.
Professors John Curtice and Rachel Gibson offered analyses that were heavy on research but a bit light on significant shifts. Is it that the politically interested are more likely to use the Net ... or the Net helps people become more interested? Not yet clear.
Derek Wyatt MP tried showing this Blair-Cameron video comparison, Hilary Clinton's online conversations, and the French Presidential elections, but was rather defeated by lack of bandwidth in the Thatcher Room, Portcullis House. Maybe the lady doesn't really approve of YouTube politics ... but Derek's enthusiasm was enough to make me explore more here later.
However, the most interest remarks, for me, came from another professor who is also an MP - Liberal Democrat Steve Webb.
He has dealt with being everywhere at once by first setting up an opt-in e-mail list for constituents to receive non-partisan news from him. One in eight households - 5000 people - now hear regularly from Steve, and e-mail him with queries and problems. He says they come up to him in supermarkets with a nudge, a wink, and "I sent you that e-mail ... I really like hearing back from you." He says it is not about sending out political propaganda, it's about building relationships.
Even more significant, I think, is his strategy of setting up profiles in MySpace and Facebook. As he explained to me, it's all about going to where people are, rather than expecting them to come to you. (Click thumbnail for Quicktime, or here for Google video) Since younger people are failing to turn out at elections in large numbers, go to their places and engage. Earlier in the meeting I asked whether the new £10,000 communications allowance for MPs was such a great idea, since e-mail and social networking was relatively inexpensive - except in MPs' time. Would less Net-savvy MPs just spend the money on yet more boring newsletters and brochures? Steve smiled, spelled out his approach, but declined to score a point. Does the Internet help create nicer MPs, or do nicer MPs use the Net? There's one for the academics.
Previously:
Government explores going where people are ... online at least

Open Source politics - fine make sure you join in

Technorati Tags: e-democracy, politics, socialnetworking

Telegraph bloggers hold open house

Blogging enables journalists to publish more stories, get rapid feedback, and cross the boundaries between old and new media. That's just online. At the Daily Telegraph - the first UK newspaper to go online 10 years ago - the new approach now extends to holding an open house event and inviting readers and other bloggers in for a chat.
Yesterday was London Social Media Club night, so Lloyd Davis led the way in meeting up with Communities Editor Shane Richmond and other Telegraph bloggers for some Q and A, a tour of the newsroom and refreshments afterwards. It reinforced my feeling that one of the greatest benefits of social media is the chance to meet interesting people.
Much of the questioning was about how journalists took to producing stories both for print and online, how comments were handled, who developed the technical platform, and how far journalists actually read other bloggers and linked.
Answers: all 40 bloggers are volunteers ... they like having the opportunity to get more stories published ... they deal with over 1000 comments a day ... Interesource developed the blogging platform ...  linking to other sites is actively encouraged. It was all very open and informative, with the added treat of a guided wander around the amazing open-plan newsroom. This is organised as a hub and spokes, so that reporters can easily talk to each other, and to senior staff at the centre. Editorial conferences are held in the middle, not away in a closed office, and looming over everyone are enormous news screens showing what others are producing. It is an all-media affair, with studio space for video and podcasting.
Afterwards I asked Shane whether blogging changed journalists ... and if it did, whether they were in danger of losing some traditional questioning edge. He thought yes, there was a often change, and it was all for the better in developing a closer relationship with readers. Good relations with other bloggers won't hurt either. As someone said, once you have met someone, you are less likely to snipe at them online. Expect few jokes about the Torygraph in the blogosphere in future; it didn't feel like that at all ... though we did gather that comment moderation is fairly tight, and some of the readership holds to more, ahem, traditional values.
If you have problem with the Quicktime movie above, it's on Google video here, together with a longer version including discussion with new media consultant Simon Dickson and lawyer Mark Boardman.
Here's an earlier report on the Telegraph newsroom by Jeff Jarvis, and Shane with Jeff.

Technorati Tags: blogging, norgs, newspapers, telegraph

Social media challenges and opportunities for nonprofits

The Guardian today carries an excellent article by Megan Griffith on the importance of social networking and social media to nonprofit organisations. It raises themes dealt with in a longer report, available here, that Megan has authored for Third Sector Foresight.

People have always come together through membership of formal organisations and informal groups, whether for mutual support, to provide a service or to campaign for change. It is this coming together that is the lifeblood of civil society.
The rapid growth of the internet and its ability to connect people in new ways is impacting on the relationships that individuals have with each other and with organisations, and on the communities of which they are a part.
If the late 19th century was the golden age of mutual institutions, clubs and societies, the early 21st century is a new golden age of networks and online communities, a virtual replication of what went before. This presents new opportunities and challenges for voluntary organisations.
From the earliest email lists and bulletin boards, to the blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace which grew rapidly and gained wider coverage in 2006, the ease with which individuals can now be linked across electronic spaces mean that niche communities can be identified and their interests aggregated.
In particular, this has enabled marginalised groups to communicate, support each other and to mobilise more easily and effectively than was previously possible.

OK, I'm a little biased because I contributed to the report, but Megan has pulled complex ideas together from a wide range of sources, and in the main report looks at the potential impact of new media on membership, information management, transparency of operation, collaboration, fundraising and marketing. I'll be speaking tomorrow at the ICT Hub conference on these issues, when the report will be available. Megan adds in The Guardian:

For many voluntary organisations, online social networks such as these have the potential to be disruptive; that is, they have the power to change the model of organising upon which many voluntary organisations, and particularly membership bodies, are based.
The connections that ICT facilitates suggest that some organisations increasingly may be bypassed, and that power may shift away from top-down hierarchical organisations and towards more fluid and participative networks where there is less need for a centralised "bricks and mortar" coordinating organisation.

After quoting a number of examples, Megan highlights the importance of dialogue with, rather than broadcast communication from an organisation

The idea that it is the network that generates content - ideas, policies, advice - is in some ways what the voluntary sector has always done, and done well. But in other ways this represents a leap in the dark for organisations for whom being "on message" is seen as an important discipline.
Bertie Bosredon, head of new media at Breast Cancer Care, explains: "A charity's brand does not have the same protection as a commercial company because your supporters feel strongly about the charity they support and feel they have some ownership of the brand.
"You don't have 100% control over what they say and this can sometimes become an issue. So blogs can be powerful but they must be carefully managed and resourced."
Where organisations traditionally may have focused their communications on pushing information out from the centre, people now also expect organisations to pull in information from other sources. As such, cultures of engagement present more of a challenge than the technologies.

It's these issues of control and collaboration that I want to explore tomorrow - neatly summarised by Beth Kanter and Bev Trayner as Are you Yes 2.0 or No 2.0?

Previously: Nonprofit leadership means networking, socially and openly

Technorati Tags: nptech, nptechuk, socialmedia, socialnetworking

Free conference on new media and society: old-style event

The RSA is following up discussions it hosted recently on open source politics with a more substantial free conference on The social impact of the web: society, government and the Internet on May 25. It fits with moves by the new chief executive, Matthew Taylor, to re-energise the 250-year-old institution with new forms of engagement inside and out. Earlier posts on that here and here. The e-mail invitation says:

The RSA is looking to explore the political culture and norms that the internet has been instrumental in fostering, both in relation to centralised democratic politics, and more diffuse social and civic networks, including blogging.
Our view in essence is that the high hopes of the 90s for e-democracy and new forms of on-line consultation and community mobilisation have not been met. Rather than fostering new forms of constructive engagement, dialogue and 'pro-social' community action, the type of politics most favoured by the internet seems to be conversations between fellow believers, anti-establishment cynicism and single issue mobilisation.  Too many attempts by public authorities to use the web simply involved putting existing information and processes on-line.
The communication model has been vertical and mainly downward. But we think the emergence of web 2.0 offers an opportunity to revive the idealism of a decade ago. While internet 1.0 continued to reinforce an 'us' versus 'them' divide between citizens and power, we can envisage web 2.0 encouraging a rich and constructive 'us and us' dialogue in which citizens deliberate, innovate and act together.

I have signed up with the promise of these speakers:

• Professor Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Dist. Service Prof. of Jurisprudence, Law School, Dept. of Political Science and the College, University of Chicago
• Tom Steinberg, Founder and Director, mySociety and former policty analyst
• Andrew Chadwick, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Royal Holloway, University of London
• William Davies, Goldsmiths, University of London

I'm sure these speakers will have lots to tell us, of great value. But I am also sure that there will be even more wisdom in the several hundred people attending, and I suspect we will be rather inhibited in contributing beyond the usual question and answer sessions, and coffee-break networking.
The problem is that the RSA has a wonderful theatre-style Great Room (pictured) that is terrific for 'us' to 'them' lectures, but no good for more participatory events where everyone gets a say, perhaps with a mixture of presentation and open space or unconferencing.  We'll be collected, barely connected and certainly not collective. Definitely not Web 2.0. The invitation says:

This conference will ask: How can new internet technology empower us to interact with each other in novel ways?

Daring thought: might the RSA modify its events format on special occasions, and "explore how new meetings technology can empower us to interact with each other in old ways (conversation)"? Any ideas?
Update: William Davies is promising an update on what he calls his bah humbug thesis ... may be Curmudgeon 2.0. The earlier version included:

My plea is simply that we should give serious and sustained thought to what types of cultural norms are going to be needed to make ours a civil and decent society which can respect the norms of public space, without being locked into private forms of entertainment and quasi-socialising.

Open source politics: will top policy bloggers now lead the way?

Paul Evans at Never Trust a Hippy suggests that good blogs by those close to power may be more interesting than those in power. I think he has a point, and also that some high-level blogging around issues of climate change may provide opportunities to promote the open source politics and conversational democracy that politicians and policy people agree is desirable. Here's how.
Paul notes the new chief executive of the RSA Matthew Taylor has now started blogging:

This is a good thing, as he has a very good vantage point. He's been a big noise in the Labour Party, he's been the gaffer at the IPPR and has worked at No.10. And he's waded into discussions about how blogging impacts upon politics without - IMHO - really understanding how the blogosphere works. He's now running the RSA, and I hope that his blog will evolve into a ministerial proxy-blog.
Why anyone wants ministers themselves to blog, I don't know. The Chatham House Rule throws up more of interest than any ministerial statements ever do. Matthew Taylor can offer a deniable sounding board - and that's what I hope his blog turns into.

As Paul indicates, Matthew Taylor sounded off at the e-democracy '06 conference against political bloggers contributing to a "shrill discourse of demands", and called instead for more deliberation online - as I caught on video. He is now at the RSA, and recently chaired an event where Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne promoted open source politics and got some strong support for a more positive use of the web. Internally Matthew Taylor is working on how the RSA can make far better use of the collective intelligence of its 26,000 Fellows.
Anyway, back to Ministerial and associated blogging. Environment Secretary David Miliband has been diligent in maintaining his blog, and yesterday posted a detailed rebuttal of the claims made in the Channel 4 programme The Great Climate Change Swindle.

Several people have said to me that they couldn’t quite believe what they were being told in Channel 4’s programme last week on climate change – and I promised yesterday in my interview on the Today programme  to put the facts on my blog. Below I have set out what Defra scientists say about the 11 main allegations in the programme. You can read for yourself what the International Panel on Climate Change say or the statement of the Academies of Science of the 11 largest countries in the world.

On Monday Matthew Taylor started in on climate change on his new blog, reflecting on the twists and turns of Labour and Tory positions, and their coming together:

What should we make of all this? Obviously it is good that the politicians are putting climate change centre stage. After last month’s grim IPCC report (itself probably erring on the cautious side), there was nowhere left to hide on the issue. Environmental groups must feel like the only girl at the ball so assiduously are they being courted. Put both Brown’s and Cameron’s ideas together and you have a pretty serious action plan. Brown is right that action must be taken internationally; Cameron that the domestic requirements of such agreements will not be met by voluntarism alone.
But there is a danger in the environment being seen as a political fad. As the sociologist Stan Cohen brilliantly analysed in his book 'States of Denial', most of us rely on a capacity to turn our faces away from difficult truths. Thus were most Germans under Nazi rule able to deny responsibility for the Holocaust and even otherwise progressive white South Africans willing to live with Apartheid. And maybe it is how we can live affluent Western lifestyles while a few thousand miles away African children starve?
In persisting with denial we rely on certain mental tropes such as 'it's not really happening', 'it's nothing to do with me' or 'there's nothing I can do about it'. By making climate change feel like an issue of political point scoring rather then unarguable science and clear moral responsibility we run the danger of providing an easy route for denial.
Ultimately I believe we can tackle carbon emissions and have better lives, but in the short term we face some tough choices. Once this row is over, our politicians should try to find a basis for an agreed way forward.

Not many clues there yet to what's going on, but since the RSA has a major proposal for personal carbon trading, and the FT is commenting on Matthew Taylor's reaction to Tory plans, we can feel he is in the middle of it, and certainly talking to some key people offline.
There now seems to me a good opportunity here for Mr Taylor and Mr Miliband (who must know each other well) to lead the way in developing some of the online deliberation desirable around these complex issues ... as well as talking privately. The term "conversational democracy" cropped up when Paul and I bumped into each other at the RSA event, which reminded me that Stephen Coleman wrote a good pamphlet on that for IPPR and "the importance of building respect and empathy into the relationship between public and politicians". Matthew Taylor wrote a Foreword in which he said:

Stephen Coleman is right to urge a more sophisticated and ambitious use of ICT as a way of modernising and refreshing the representative relationship.

Good time to start. We now have a key politician blogging, and Mr Taylor leading an organisation committed to using social media more effectively to generate ideas and action, and a Big Issue. So I hope we will see, as a start, some linking and commenting on each other's blogs, and attempts to draw in others.
If distinguished politicians and chief execs just use their blog for declaration rather than conversation, we won't be any closer to open source politics or conversational democracy.  I'm flattered to see I'm in Mr Miliband's blogroll. That's the sort of encouragement we smaller fish in the blogging pond need - and I'm sure they do too . Put Mr M and Mr T in your news readers and blogrolls now, and let's throw them some comments and links.

Technorati Tags: e-democracy

Sunderland wins Digital Challenge ... everyone gets a present

The competitive part of the UK Government's Digital Challenge ended yesterday with the announcement that Sunderland had won against nine other finalists. Attention now shifts to the other part of the programme - developing a wider network for public bodies, nonprofits and companies concerned to promote digital inclusion. The government has said the programme will be a testbed for the way that £14.5 billion of public funds is spent on future service delivery ... so there is a wider significance.

Sunderland wins £3 million pounds for a proposal which, the press release says:

...  will see its community benefiting from a number of initiatives such as Community e-Champions working in their local area to help vulnerable people access computer and internet services, helping children at risk of underachieving at Key Stage 3 and an e-mentoring scheme working for children and young people.  The bid will also meet the needs of carers and looked after children through a walkie talkie and panic buttons.

After the announcement I pulled three members of the winning team away from the champagne, and asked Deborah Young and Dave Shovlin, from the City Council, and Jackie Noonan, of Sunderland Community Network, what was special about the bid. They emphasised partnership working, and focussing on what people really wanted rather than what the technology could - in theory - deliver. There was a request from some school children for a digital dog translation programme (help us understand what our dog is barking) that they couldn't deliver, but felt that most other interests would be served.
At the lunch, where Local e-government Minister Angela Smith made the announcement, I was sitting with the Manchester team, who were naturally disappointed not to win, but got some small consolation in being named as runners-up. No-one could explain what that meant in practice - no plaque, no special funding - but  I sense that it could be a smart move on the part of the judges. The Manchester team leader Dave Carter has been strongly promoting the idea that, whoever wins, the ten finalists - and others - should work together collaboratively on innovative digital inclusion projects. I'm sure Dave and the others in Manchester will follow through on that.
One of the other favourites was Bristol, but there again I'm sure the lack of a prize won't hold things up. Stephen Hilton and his team have a reputation for just getting on with things, and I suspect that their bid was largely a wrapper for lots of things they were going to do anyway.
However, there was a pleasant surprise for those who didn't win, because the Minister and the Digital Challenge team at the Department for Communities and Local Government, led by Stephen Dodson, had managed to find another £2 million to split among the nine. The competition helped generate some fresh ideas, partnerships and engagement ... this additional funding should help maintain that momentum.

• The Digital Challenge Inclusion Network site
• The Sunderland winning bid
• Other coverage of Digital Challenge

Previously here

• Local tech planning with a pack of cards
• Bridging the people-technology divide ... with a few bits of paper
• Digital Challenge programme seen as £14.5 bn testbed
• Competing councils form a collaborative alliance
• Digital divide in the era of social networking

Technorati Tags: nptech, nptechuk, digitaldivide, socialtech

Open source Osborne gets serious techie endorsement

I first got excited by the potential of blogging and social media through a presentation by Lee Bryant a few years back. Lee manages to combine highly innovative social software development with Livio Hughes and colleagues at Headshift, with a continuing interest in international relations and the empowering potential of the Internet. He worked with humanitarian organisations in Bosnia during the conflict there  - so I was particularly interested to hear what his reaction would be to Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne's ideas on "open source politics" at the RSA the other day.
As you can see here, Lee was enthusiastic about ideas for information access, and a move from a government-centric to a citizen-centric model that might combat people's scepticism about participation initiatives. He stressed the importance of open access to data, opening the way for e-democracy projects like those developed by mySociety, and open api that enables joining up of software applications.
Lee made the distinction between consultation - join in your system - and participation - join in a shared system. This meant that the ownership of political process and deliberation should sit outside Westminster, and political parties.
Lee also argued for more localised social networks to complement the global networks like myspace. These could contribute to genuinely deliberative democracy. At this point Lee threw in the example of the Swiss cantons, and the bottom-up jamahiriya decision-making in Libya. I think he particularly enjoyed tossing that one in.
He sounded a note of caution about the difficulties of managing online discussion, citing the way that the Guardian's Comment is Free online articles attract less than sophisticated comments.
Lee rounded-off his remarks with a heartfelt endorsement of possible changes in Government procurement of technology projects - advocated by George Osborne -  under which currently a relatively small group of large companies manage to get the contracts. "Milking them for all they are worth" was the phrase I heard.
Apologies for the quality of the video - it was a bit of an experiment to see what I could capture from the second row with with my new toy, a tiny Sanyo Xactia. It has the facility to connect an external microphone, which I should try next time.

Technorati Tags: open source, snnonprofit, socialmedia

Nonprofit leadership means networking, socially and openly

Here's some joining up of threads about nonprofits, the web, uncollaboration, social networking, and open source politics. Just looking through my small window, I think something's going on.
Last year I wrote a piece musing about how the development of social networking might impact on the membership of associations and other nonprofit organisations.

It used to be that you joined associations because it was a way of meeting like-minded people and getting help, facilities, information and other things difficult or costly to organise for yourself. These days it is much easier to find people and resources online, and to mix and match these assets into project teams, communities of practice, and informal networks.

This is one of the themes in the forthcoming report from the NCVO ICT Foresight team:

For many VCOs (voluntary and community organisations), online ‘social’ networks have the potential to be disruptive; that is, they have the power to change the model of organising upon which many VCOs, and particularly membership bodies, are based. The connections that ICT facilitates suggest that some organisations may increasingly be bypassed and that power may shift away from top-down hierarchical organisations and towards more fluid and participative networks where there is less need for a centralised ‘bricks and mortar’ coordinating organisation.

Now Leon Benjamin, author of Winning by Sharing, offers a telling comment to my piece about Nonprofit uncollaboration. That cited Paul Caplan on how national nonprofits are less collaborative than they might be, and fail to see the potential and impact of the web.  Leon writes:

I think the problem is leadership. The reality is that leaders of VCOs and NGOs aren't equipped to lead in the 21st century's networked economy. And this isn't their fault, but they need to accept help from people who can create the conditions that enable leaders to emerge, and then step aside. This isn't their time now.
Just before he died, Peter Drucker said at Davos in Switzerland, "community-building talent is the single most precious resource in the modern world." Let me briefly explain why.
Online community service poviders like Ezboard and CommunityZero, and Bebo and MySpace, to a certain extent have created leaders who in some cases, have literally started movements, with huge numbers of supporters and advocates. EzBoard has over half a million discrete 'clubs', each with a leader, covering a vast array of subject matter.
These leaders often deliver an experience that enriches people's social and professional lives. More so than the associations and unions that are supposed to serve them.
These are our leaders of the future.

Meanwhile, a fascinating discussion breaks out between those people in nonprofits who do see the impact of social networking and new media, and those who believe it is all a bit distant from the day-to-day work of most charities, and so not particularly relevant. I think they should take note of what Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is saying about the development of open source politics:

Top down politics is no longer sustainable in a bottom-up age.
There are some who say that blogs and on-line petitions merely give a platform to the angry activist - what you Matthew (Taylor) have called the voices of "shrill outrage".
Here, I disagree with you.
Of course it provides another channel for the activist, shrill-voiced or otherwise. But it's also opening up politics to people who would never ordinarily engage with politicians or mainstream political parties.

George Osborne was speaking at the RSA where Matthew Taylor - former strategy adviser to Tony Blair - has recently taken over as chief executive. He spoke at the e-democracy '06 conference about more deliberation, less shrill political blogging.
Even before Matthew Taylor's  arrival the RSA had started to think about how a 250-year-old organisation could engage its 26,000 Fellows more effectively. I know from more recent discussions that they are taking seriously how new media can play a big part - and indeed, Matthew has his own blog. He writes - in the context of last week's RSA event:

While Web 1.0 may have simply reinforced 'us and them' political discourse, Web 2.0 offers huge scope for new forms of ‘us and us’ engagement. The wiki has huge potential as a policy deliberation tool but we need good applications (the RSA is working to develop one for our Fellows).

I think Leon is right: to be a social leader in future, the CEOs of nonprofits need to understand social networking - and that means being part of it. If the previously-traditionalist RSA shows what's possible, others may take more notice.

Technorati Tags: collaboration, nonprofit, nptech, nptechuk, snnonprofit, socialmedia, socialnetworking

Open source politics: fine, make sure you join in

Does it matter whether politicians who talk up the Internet's potential for re-inventing politics, education, employment actually use it hands-on for the purposes they present, and join in? Or should we just be grateful if they have a good script from their researchers, have met the right people, and can engage in sensible conversation about social networking? What coverage do they get with that good script, but no online presence? (Warning: heavy linking and deconstruction follows).

These questions were prompted by an event at the RSA, organised by Policy Unplugged, where George Osborne  gave the second instalment of an earlier lecture Politics and Media in the Internet Age, that I and others thought pretty good last year. This time he was talking about open source politics and the three pillars on which we should build, as he put it, a political settlement for the digital age: equality of information, new social networks, and open source. The full speech is here, with a short version at Comment is free in the Guardian. After he kindly gave me an interview - video on the right** - I did some research on what followed.

The strongest coverage has been on Osborne's call for Government to switch to open source software, prompted no doubt by the Tories own press release:

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has promised that an incoming Conservative government would create a level playing field for open source software in the UK, in a move which could save taxpayers more than £600 million a year.
In a speech at the Royal Society of Arts, he also announced the appointment of Mark Thompson, of the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, to advise the Party on how to make Britain the open source leader in Europe.

That is covered here by ZDNet UK with a response from Microsoft (who are much favoured by Labour), and also here. More interesting, I thought, were Mr Osoborne's references to the scope for open source thinking here:

Open source harnesses the power of mass collaboration and to find new ideas.
This isn't some new fangled approach that may or may not take off. It's increasingly becoming the mainstream way that businesses are generating value and reach optimal decisions.

... and the potential for politicians to engage through social networking:

These bottom-up grassroots networks such as MySpace and Bebo bring people together on the basis of common interests, irrespective of geography or even language.
American politicians are well aware of the potential of these networks. Barack Obama already has 300,000 "friends" on Facebook alone. He's even set up his own social networking site.

I found it a pretty convincing performance, and others I talked to on the day did too ... on the rueful lines of "I'm not a Tory, I work in social media ... and he sounds as if knows what he is talking about".  I the