Redesigning Civil Society, collaboratively

The Guardian’s Societydaily roundup quotes my remark that “It’s obvious we are going to see big cuts in local services whoever is
elected, so we had better get thinking” So here we go.

Patrick Butler writes in the Guardian:

I have some sympathy with the signatories of this letter in “defence of (read more...)

The new online challenge: combatting social insurgents

While an enquiry was today clearing climate change scientists of malpractice in the leaked email affair, I was hearing further details of how the sceptics used blogging to promote “Climategate” as a story that undermined public confidence in research … and about the emergence of the social insurgent.

I wrote recently about how climate sceptics network more effectively than environmentalists, reporting work commissioned by Oxfam from the digital mapping agency Prospero. Left Foot Forward reported:

The speed of information flow within the sceptic community, with its rapid publication of sceptical “research”, is far quicker than any scientist or NGO could hope to match – and handily unencumbered by peer review or sign-off processes.This meant that because almost no-one from the climate movement responded to or rebutted the sceptics’ arguments, they ended up owning the story.

Today while at the OxfordJam social entrepreneur event I met Nathan Flowers, of The Social Media Lab, who worked on the analysis. He explained how fast the climate change sceptics were able to operate in spreading news of the email leak, dubbing it Climategate, and getting mainstream coverage through the Daily Telegraph blog written by James Delingpole. (read more...)

Getting back to Government Is Us

We’ll hear a lot of high-level policy discussion about Big Society versus Big Government in the run up to the general election – due to be rekindled by the Tories next Wednesday, I hear – but amidst wonky talk of localism it’s easy to lose touch with what that can mean in reality. A meeting last night with Jim Diers, from Seattle, brought some down-to-earth optimism. (read more...)

Get to know the neighbours through mediascapes

After the inspiration of AppsforGood in Tulse Hill, I found more evidence last week in another part of London of the scope for using mobile phones to engage people both young and old in thinking about their neighbourhood – and meeting their neighbours. (read more...)

Apps for Good: smartphones solving local problems

Young people looking for jobs and new skills … community problems needing innovative solutions … smartphones increasingly popular … apps for these phones a big growth area. Why not mix those elements and create a new project Apps for Good? Which is exactly what CDI launched last week, with a big grant from Dell.
Is this just another social-media-will-solve-our social-problems dream? After some great conversations at the launch, I think there’s more to it than that.
I’ve been following with great interest the research undertaken to Iris Lapinski to see how CDI could bring the digital inclusion work they started in 1995 in Latin America to the UK. Their mission is:

… to transform lives and strengthen low-income communities by empowering people with information and communication technology. We use technology as a medium to fight poverty, stimulate entrepreneurship and create a new generation of changemakers. (read more...)

Video of Monkeys with Typewriters seminar

As expected, I enjoyed Jemima Gibbons seminar last night on her book Monkeys with Typewriters. I experimented using the Qik video streaming iPhone app, and captured most of the event as it happened, then did a short interview afterwards.
You can see the videos that I streamed here. It worked reasonably well, except that on the iPhone SMS messages pop up with a preview that you can’t completely turn off, and it stopped the camera. This happened a couple of times, and the camera also went into stand-by a few times too.
I posted this to the Qik Get Satisfaction site, and was very impressed to get a response a few minutes later. Unfortunately it looks as if the problem is here for a bit. (read more...)

Is the Summer of Social Media Love a fading memory?

The prospect of doing some interviews at the seminar on Jemima Gibbons book, Monkeys With Typewriters, later today set me thinking on some gentle provocations to get things going … particularly ones that are a bit metaphorical.
Recent conversations and exchanges dispel any remaining simplistic enthusiasm for the possible benefits of social media. It isn’t a magic potion. We should pay far more attention to the context in which social media is used, for what purpose, by whom and so on. (read more...)

Putting social tech two clicks down

One of the recurrent bits of conversation around the social media scene is “of course, it’s not about the tools, it’s about people … how they share … changes in culture … challenges to hierarchies” often followed by “and have you seen this latest iPhone app“.
To be fair, there isn’t a total contradiction in that, because smartphones often help us converse, connect, collaborate without a lot of the desktop computer hassle. However, while there’s a strong current of feeling that we should get beyond the technology to the real benefits and values that go with social media, that’s not always to the fore. (gross generalisations, please challenge).
One of the things that’s great about Jemima Gibbons’ book Monkeys with Typewriters is that it unashamedly puts the tools two clicks down: the chapters are around Co-Creation, Passion, Learning, Openness, Listening, and Generosity; then there are interviews with a wide range of people showing how these apply in practice, and only then do we get to the tech.
I want to persue these ideas following an earlier interview, and fortunately there’s a great opportunity on Wednesday evening when Jemima is giving a seminar in London at One Alfred Place, with the Society for Organizational Learning. Details on Jemima’s MWT blog here. There is a charge – £20, or £10 if you are a member of One Alfred Place – but I’ve no doubt it will be worth it for good conversation on the non-tech aspects of social media. (read more...)

Shock! Socialreporter joins the information professionals

At the end of 2008 I had a lot of fun doing some social reporting at the big annual Online Information event, as you can see here. I was there with my chum Ed Mitchell, who actually knows something about knowledge management and such things. I was mostly just pointing the camera.
This year I’m hugely flattered to be invited by organiser Lorna Candy to join the executive conference committee to help plan the event next December. You can see information about last month’s event here.
Steve Dale is chairing the committee this year, and I’ve been spending some time with him on work around the IDeA knowledge hub. I’m not a committee person, but Steve is a great social media and social reporting enthusiast, as well as being an expert on Communities of Practice facilitation and technology. I’m sure our meetings will be conversational and creative. (read more...)

Rethinking networks as passionate human clouds

A meeting in London with Peggy Duvette, chief executive of WiserEarth, and also with Ed Mitchell, sparked some thoughts about networking – global, local, and organisational. Well, questions mostly. Warning: this is a bit of ramble that also takes (read more...)