Designing for Civil Society

Social Innovation Camp projects announced

The Social Innovation Camp organisers have now announced the six projects that will be developed collaborative April 4-6. Is that where the buzz will be about social media in UK nonprofits? And if so, what happens after the camp? First, here's the projects:

• Barcode Wikipedia
• Enabled by Design
• Personal development reports
• Prison visits
• Rate My CV
• Stuffshare

All very promising, but just as interesting are some of the other ideas mentioned in their post, and the notion of the Camp as a way of catalysing continuing innovation:

We had lots of suggestions for ways to better map and coordinate the voluntary and charity sector online which would tackle some of the big problems that existing organizations face: overlapping purpose; incomplete knowledge of others in the field; identification of sources of social need; lack of transparency and so forth. There were a number of suggestions for social networking for social organizations and web 2.0 tool kits. Some nice examples include Arjen Mulder’s COOpen.net, a social networking platform for international development organizations, and Andy Gibson’s Partner Up, which is designed to encourage the sharing of best practice and collaboration to help organizations get far more done with fewer resources. David Munir Nabti, Jessica Dheere, Patricia Nabti and Hala Makarem submitted a similar idea tailored specifically for the Lebanese third sector.

Camp organisers ( Paul Miller, Dan McQuillan and Christian Albert) say:

We’re hoping that many of the ideas which have come to the surface through this process will be given a home elsewhere. Even if we weren’t able to develop your idea further, please feel free to keep using our website to continue to discuss them. And if the event in April is successful, why not borrow our format, learn from our mistakes and set up your own Social Innovation Camp?

Now I guess we'll need some camp follower tracking to keep in touch. The Social Innovation Camp is in some ways an alternative to the idea for a UK Netsquared initiative discussed at the Newman Arms last year. Some people wanted to focus on supporting existing nonprofits, other were more in line with Dan McQuillan's assertion that Charities are broken, and the best route forward is through more disruptive innovations. What happens after the Camp? I'm sure, with that number of innovative thinkers in one place, ideas will flow.

Nonprofit chief executives get some encouragement to start blogging

Blogging about the voluntary and community sector in the UK can be rather unrewarding because few senior figures write about their work - or, I suspect, read blogs. There's not much blogosphere buzz. Maybe that's going to change now that Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the organisation for nonprofit chief executives acevo has got going with Bubb's blog.

Governance magazine can't resist a rather patronising piece highlighting the sectoral politics that it perceives between the lines:

In the olden days, before the internet was born, even Very Important People generally had to wait to be invited by editors for the opportunity to tell their public what they were thinking.
Not so today. With the advent of Web 2.0, anybody can set up a blog and share their innermost with the world. Which seems to suit Stephen Bubb, chief executive of acevo (pictured), to a T.
On Bubb’s new blog, at http://www.bloggerbubb.blogspot.com/, the chief executives’ chief executive promises readers will be treated to “the inside track of a third sector leader influencing in Whitehall, championing professionalism and causing a stir”.
He then goes on to treat readers to an intimate rundown of his week, complete with namechecks of Ed Miliband, Phil Hope, John Hutton, and even The Queen. It also contains a couple of glimpses into his private life.
He makes thinly-veiled digs at the NCVO (“Whilst others are debating whether to broaden out to civil society, acevo has always recruited members from housing associations, unions, and political parties”) and at Richard Gutch’s Futurebuilders, of which he is soon to become chair (“I need to do a good job steering Futurebuilders back on to track in supporting service delivery through the third sector”).
He congratulates Miliband and Hope on the work they did behind the scenes on gift aid to secure “a good Budget” for charities, and advises: “I do hope the sector will show appreciation for this instead of what we often do – whinge. Whinging has its place. However, so does thanks for a job well done.”
And on a personal note, he reveals that he is thinking of getting a dog, and that he has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Because of this (the diabetes, not the dog), he has to “get a grip on a proper diet and do some exercise”. How this will affect his notoriously busy networking schedule remains to be seen. What is certain, though, is that thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s marvellous invention, we shall undoubtedly be kept informed.

Governance say of their print magazine that it is:

.... the essential resource for charity trustees. It provides comprehensive yet concise coverage of all the issues trustees need to be aware of, and offers practical advice to help boards implement clear, well thought-out strategies that will ensure their charity’s success.

No blog or feeds on their site, or commenting. Old-style come to us, we speak, you listen.
So I think that it is splendid that Stephen has taken the plunge, and in doing so is able to speak directly to others in the sector. Can it be long before Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, feels he should join in?
If Stephen is looking for some blogger friends, there's a list of blogs and wikis in the non profit social media field on the social media wiki.

Meanwhile let's pop over to his place with a welcome to the blogosphere and a few encouraging tips. Every blogger needs an audience: let's start building one for Stephen.

Clay Shirky today at the RSA

Clay Shirky gave a great presentation today on his book Here Comes Everybody. I was sitting in the second row of the RSA Great Room, so shot some video. The RSA will be putting the pro version up on its site sometime in the future ... but I know a number of people who were keen to hear Clay couldn't make it, so here's a taste.
Clay spent the first part of his talk giving three examples filling out what he says in the book:

Everywhere you look, groups of people are coming together to share with one another, work together, or take some kind of public action. For the first time in history, we have tools that truly allow for this.
In the same way the printing press amplified the individual mind and the telephone amplified two-way conversation, now a host of new tools, from instant messages and mobile phones to weblogs and wikis, amplify group communication. And because we are natively good at working in groups, this amplification of group effort will change more than business models: it will change society.

The examples were of students organising through Facebook against the bank HSBC when it withdrew a free overdraft offer; young people in Belarus organising an ice-cream social in a square where gatherings were banned; Sicilian businesses organising online against the Mafia.
After the examples Clay provided some analysis, which is what I've captured in the video. He started by assuring us he wasn't going to promise a post-hierarchical paradise in which organiastions wither away; that story had been around for 10 years ... with a constant promise that it would happen sometime. Rather we are at the beginning of experimenting with the way that power shifts because of the ability of goups to communicate, and then to come together to take action.  There's a 40 minute video here from a talk Clay gave at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Update: Kevin Anderson has blogged an excellent paraphrase of Clay's presentation and the  Q and A.

Technorati Tags: collaboration

We can't do that - and they mustn't do it either

The realities of introducing social media into organisations was brought home to me again yesterday at a conference in Cardiff for people in housing associations with responsibility for PR and communications. We had some fine presentations about developing the brand, dealing with media, using storytelling. These days tenants are customers, housing stock is homes - and quite rightly so.
I ran a couple of workshops on what blogs, wikis, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the like might bring to the mix, and how organisations could use lots of free tools from Google and other sources. I tried to focus on what this meant for organisations, as people become more able to find their voice to contribute ideas, experience - and of course complain if they were not happy with services.
New media tools can give housing associations better ways to provide information, and support communication and collaboration within and outside the organisation. However, if the tools are in the hands of the resident/customers, that changes power relationships. Things shift from "take it from us" to "we'll take it from each other".
That's where the difficulties arose. While many people in the workshop were excited by the possibilities, they foresaw difficulties which were summed up in two phrases. The first was "we can't do that" - which meant the IT department and senior staff won't let us look at certain sites, or use free tools. The second was "we can't let them do that" - which meant that within the culture of the organisation it would not be conceivable to help customers develop their own voice, except within quite tightly controlled circumstances.
These constraints did not apply to everyone, and of course there are ways to work these things through in organisations, as Colin McKay sets out in his excellent Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organisations. However, what struck me was the number of glum nods to these observations, rather than the number of challenges.
The consensus in the workshops was that significant change was a few years off, not least because the customers of housing associations were (as a whole) older, poorer and less media literate than the rest of the population. Introducing social media would not be a high priority in addressing their needs.
On the other hand the PR and communications people in the workshop did feel that they should, personally, be exploring what social media could offer. Problem is, will that be seen as a priority by their bosses?
As well as a presentation and discussion, at one of the sessions we played a new version of the social media game, which I think worked pretty well. I've put all the instructions and cards up on the social media wiki. Please feel free to download and try the game for yourself.
Any examples of organisations - housing or otherwise - that are prepared to help their customers or members find a voice would be welcome. We are now exploring those issues over on a new site for The Membership Project.
I'm off to hear Clay Shirky talk at the RSA about his book Here Comes Everybody, which explains how people are organising without organisations. Landlords beware.

Technorati Tags: membership, housing

How any group can become a Freeschool

The School of Everything is a simple and cleverly executed idea by a web start-up company who say, only slightly tongue in cheek, that they hate the Internet.

The idea is that we all have something to learn ... and may well have something we can teach, informally if not formally. Why not use an online matching system to help learners and teachers get together? But instead of thinking that can all be done online, help people to meet up and get to know and learn from each other as fully as possible. The comic strip tells it all.

The "hate the Internet" line comes in because the School folk feel we should spend less, not more time in front of the screen. Let's use it to do smart stuff, not become eyeballs for the admen. Even so TechCrunch was impressed.
I knew most of this before going along to a workshop today on Designing for the 21st Century, organised by my friends at PRaDSA (Practical Design for Social Action).

 

What I didn't know was that Andy Gibson and chums at the School have now come up with a very neat little hack which shows how any group can become a school.

 

Andy invited us all do something really simple: stick post-it notes on a board with corners labeled social, action, free, and (I think I remember) paid for. It very quickly started us talking about what we were looking for, and what we could offer - which is a good-enough way of starting any sort of workshop. The neat hack is that Andy has now invited us to carry on the matching on a little Freeschool micro-site within the main School site.
I met Andy through the RSA Networks site, which he and Saul Albert have developed, and will no doubt see more of him at the Social Innovation Camp where I'm really interested in his Partner Up proposal ... but that's another story. There's only so much Internet-assisted learning I can take before bed-time.

Technorati Tags: school of everything

The network is the site

We now have a set of well-shot and edited reflections from the Circuit Rider conference, thanks to Marc Osten whose session opening session I videod here. I grabbed some observations wandering about the session - Marc was later able to interview people on the challenges they found introducing Web 2.0 technology into voluntary and community organisations and building online community.
Marc posted the video on his site, then emailed me the code from YouTube so I could embed it up here if I wished. Thanks Marc.

About the same time I spotted a "shout" (short message) posted by Matthew Edmonson to the UnLtdWorld site pointing to a post on his site embedding a video I had taken of him.

My videos are also up on the conference site, where someone has now done a transcript of the key points that I recorded. There's a shared set of photos on Flickr here.

This sort of sharing, and adding value, is possible if we agree to the principle of building on each other's work, ideally adding a Creative Commons license to make that clear.
There is is nothing very fancy in what has happened here - at least to those familar with the way that we can use Web 2.0 technology if we apply open collaborative principles. I could go on with more tools and examples ... but don't need to because Paul Caplan has just written an excellent free Social Media Guide for the Media Trust which you can download from here. Free. Thanks Paul.
I'm telling the story of the videos because one of the main problems people at the conference said they had was explaining to others the benefits of using Web 2.0, and the philosophies that go with it. It's one thing to point to great examples from the US - where they are rather ahead of us in adoption - but it is much more convincing when it is close to home, you experience it first hand and can show your colleagues and clients.
It may help when next time a group says "we need a fancy new site". Circuit Riders can explain that these days the network is the site, and they are demonstrating that.

Technorati Tags: circuit riders

BBC leads us behind the scenes on new media, if not news

I've rather stalled in the exploration, started here, of how the BBC might be developing its new local multi-media services to fulfill its Charter remit of "sustaining citizenship and civil society". BBC people I bump into say I know as much as they do .... but then it is a big place.
I floated the idea of an event as part of RSA Networks, but was told staff were already working on something - please wait. Maybe not much will happen until the BBC Trust has completed its review of bbc.co.uk, leaving the way open for new ideas on local news.
Meanwhile Lucy Hooberman opens the window on work she has started at BBC Future Media and Technology, provisionally called Behind the Scenes. The project was announced last September by Director General Mark Thompson, when people were more focussed on editorial breaches in competitions and voting:

The Director-General informed the Trust that he has commissioned a major new online project which will enable the public to explore how contemporary media content is produced. The BBC believes this will be a major contribution to media literacy in Britain. Roly Keating, the Controller of BBC Two, and Chris Burns, Executive Editor, Factual Programmes, BBC Audio and Music, have been asked to lead this work. Both are senior programme makers with substantial and distinguished experience.

Lucy explains how she is looking at what other organisations are doing, tagging her researches on del.icio.us, and monitoring what others are saying about the BBC and its Internet blogging. She adds:

But I’d love to hear about what else is going on in this area. Who’s doing what? And any ideas about what you’d like to know about too.

This seems to be another good example of BBC staff reaching out directly to what used to be known as audience (now including content producers) to find out what we want, and what we can contribute. Will BBC Trustees - until now absent from the blogosphere - feel the need to join in?
Previously: What's the role of trustees now we are networked?

Update: Lucy has now written more on the BBC Internet Blog

Technorati Tags: bbccouk, bbcinternetblog

Create an open conference archive

While at the February 2008 Circuit Rider conference in the UK, I introduced Matthew Edmonson to Nick Booth on the basis that both of them had an interest in open collaboration. To capture the conversation I gave Matthew the camera - and after a shaky hand-over it worked really well.

I came back to find Matthew and Nick having a fascinating conversation about how capturing conference archive material, and making it available for editing, could create a new non-hierarchical experience for participants and others who couldn't attend. Of course, not all organisers will go for it ... because they want to protect and assert their brand.

Also:

• Reality checks on using Web 2.0 for social change
• Other conference videos

Technorati Tags: nptech, nptechuk

Spreading the open philosophy

Matthew Edmonson is a strong advocate for open source software as a way of offering sustainable IT solutions to the third sector. When we met at the February 2008 Circuit Riders conference in Birmingham, UK, we talked about how open source principles can be applied more widely. Matthew offered some lessons from software development that could be useful to anyone attempting open collaborative development work.

Also:

• Reality checks on using Web 2.0 for social change
• Other conference videos

Technorati Tags: circuit riders, nptech, nptechuk

Helping funders find you online

One of the other people running a workshop at the recent Circuit Riders conference was US-based consultant John Kenyon, who wrote afterwards:

It was exciting to hear about the different experiences of these consultants with nonprofit/charity organizations. As always when meeting with nonprofit consultants I am struck by the thread of commonality that connects us all. We all face similar challenges in communicating and marketing our services, creating work agreements, doing investigations, collecting data, determining the best intervention and helping organizations with managing change. Our clients also face similar challenges with internal capacity, improving their capabilities and especially in getting funding for technology initiatives.

During a break, I asked John about some of the US-UK differences he found. He explained that while there is less Government funding for nonprofits in the US, there are more foundations. Increasingly these are not responding to funding proposals, but going out and finding organisations that they wish to choose to support. That make online presence even more important.

John says you have to be up to date, with good content. That could be strong stories from those the organisation aims to serve. However, content is not enough ... you need to have a personal presence as well.
People don't just relate to content, people relate to people.
Previously: Reality checks on using Web 2.0 for social change

Technorati Tags: nonprofit, nptech, nptechuk, circuit riders