Those change agents might be councillors, community organisers, people running local groups, citizens running a campaign and/or generally working to revive local democracy. The tools they use (or could use) might be existing ones used by groups like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Eventbrite, Evernote, Dropbox … as well as email, texts and phones, of course.

The tools may also be new ones like the many mobile apps under development – perhaps including some by Apps for Good, who train young people to be developers.

Lobbi’s mission – led by Hussain “Hoz” Shafiei and Steve Moore – is to promote citizen engagement and action through social technology, and as I wrote earlier ” bring politics into the 21st century”.

I’m particularly pleased about this possible strand of Lobbi’s development because it ties in with some work I started last year on community enablers (for want of a general terms), and earlier ideas for a social app store further developed by John Popham. More links below on the background, and what follows.

I’ve used the term “change agents” because during our workshop discussion one group made the point strongly that it’s no good assembling a kit of technology tools to offer to community enablers unless you have some idea of how change happens. That may be through campaigning, working with elected representatives, crowdsourcing funding for new projects, building new networks and a host of other activities. You need a theory of change, and models for how stuff happens. I particularly like the thinking of Tessy Britton and Eileen Conn on that.

So far Lobbi has focused on developing a major web platform that would enable citizens, their elected representatives and officials to interact. In my earlier post I raised issues of what it might take to attract people to the platform, manage and fund it. I suggested a couple of early angles, now emerging:

First, if looking for a niche, consider focusing on how to digitally enable the enablers who help build communities. What help do they need in the personal use of technology, how can they help others, how can they enable their organisations. Go person-centric.

Second, take an asset-based approach nationally. Map who is doing what in this first, and aim to build connections both personal and technical. Use that knowledge both to advise and build kits for the enablers, and to create a strong community and movement for technology-enabled social action.

The ideas went down OK with Hoz and with Steve, who kindly tweeted encouragement:

At yesterday’s strategy workshop we agreed that developing a kit that helps you make a change in your community, with a mix of tech and others methods, could be a good start towards much wider engagement of citizens and their representatives.

The second point I raised – above – could be met by mapping who is doing what already, and developing a network for enabler/change agents to support each other.

What next? I’ll be following through on the exploration and development I’ve already started, with a view to an update on the workshop that we ran last year, which made a start on scoping out a kit. I hope to interest others in the emerging Lobbi network to develop a plan for testing and evolving a kit, with some “for real” local testing, and review that with Hoz and Steve.

• Lobbi and the Lobbi blog
• Introducing Lobbi – with bold aims to change politics locally and globally
• Exploring the new community enablers, and how digital may help
• Community enabler exploration on socialreporters.net
• Digitally enabling the fictitious communities of Slapham
• The challenge of networking civil society
• How we are using online tools and social networking – by Urban Forum
• Apps for Good
• Earlier posts about the idea of a social app store and people-centred development
• Creative/Collaborative as a new Participatory Paradigm? by Tessy Britton.
• Respecting the importance of emerging community enablers – the work of Eileen Conn

Downloading Democracy 2013 – Archived Live Stream from John Popham on Vimeo.

Earlier this week Lobbi, a new initiative promoting citizen engagement and action through social media, hosted a Downloading Democracy event in London. You can that see that it was a well-informed and lively affair from Mick Fealty’s excellent report, the live stream recording and Storify from John Popham.

As well as convening the event, Lobbi is developing a new online platform, outlined in this interview with Mick by the founder and initial funder of Lobbi, Hussain “Hoz” Shafiei.

As he explains on his Linkedin profile, and the interview, Hoz is “an Iranian by blood an Arab by birth and an Englishman by upbringing” with a passion to revive UK politics with an demonstration of what might also make a difference to other nations and cultures.

Hoz writes:

I returned to the UK in 2011 and decided to no longer work in a commercial industry and started on my journey to enhance global democracy. It is for this reason that I started Lobbi a project that will allow a real time connection between the electorate and their elected representatives….

Lobbi is an innovative and unique method of engaging the electorate to become re-enthused and involved with politics on a long-term basis. This is created through the ever-growing power of social media, with a Facebook/Twitter-esque interactive forum and information portal.

Lobbi provides the voting public with the means to discover current issues that affect them – instantly – via their smart phone, tablet or computer. In addition, they can get their own views across in the same way as they’d post on Facebook or Twitter. But more than this, it’s a two-way street, as politicians and elected representatives also interact, giving them a vital link to the public mood on a ‘real-time’ basis.

In short, Lobbi brings politics into the 21st century – and about time too…

You might ask, what’s new? I’ll come to that … but first, what’s not.

You can find a free event most months in London about how we need to revive democracy, and fairly frequent discussion of the role of the Internet.

We are still asking Is e-democracy now a reality? as the BBC reported in 2007, with periods of excitement around the role of social networks in the Arab Spring and the success of the Five Star Movement in the Italian election.

What’s certain is that we have plenty of online spaces for general campaigning, and specific systems for civic engagement, whether developed for citizens by mySociety or agencies like Delib.

Consumer Focus has sponsored a Digital Engagement Cookbook with 68 recipes, and Helpful Technology offers a Digital Engagement Guide of practical help and ideas.  For a wider perspective, just look at the programme for Personal Democracy Forum in New York next month. For advice on what’s worked or not, check in with Steven Clift who coined the term e-democracy in 1994 and has been promoting it globally ever since.

Steven is particularly informative on the hard slog of achieving an inclusive approach, which may come more by knocking on doors and using email lists than new social tech functions.

So how might Lobbi make a difference? At this stage I should declare an interest, because I’ve been engaged in discussions on a Lobbi Linkedin group over the past few months, and also invited to join a smaller group next week to help inform strategy. I’ve worked with Steve Moore, who is leading Lobbi development, on a number of projects, including in the early days of Big Society Network.

Steve is now developing Britain’s Personal Best (BPB) “which convenes thousands of organisations and millions of people to achieve a personal accomplishment over the course of one weekend each year”. He’s a man with the ability to carry though a big idea.

I don’t know what the Lobbi strategy will be. That depends in part on discussion next week. As Hoz indicates, a mobile-friendly system is under development that could, potentially, connect elected representatives in an area with citizens there, enable reporting of local problems to agencies, and encourage neighbour-to-neighbour cooperation. However, old hands in this field will warn that tech doesn’t do it alone.

Firstly, just build it … and they probably won’t come. Why should citizens embrace a new system  if they are happy with Facebook and its scope to create groups, pages and networks? Why should politicians and officials engage in a system that may not integrate with the ones they already have in-house?

Secondly, local politics and community action requires a blend of online and offline activity. That’s not just because a third of people may not be online – a point made by Chi Onwurah MP at this week’s event. Or that, in my experience, relatively few community activists are enthusiastic online activists. It’s also that getting things done, once you go beyond Clicktivism, involves building new relationships and trust, working through ideas and options, and making decisions in complex situations. Online isn’t enough for that.

Thirdly, if you do manage to get a lot of people online in the same place, you need to put a lot of effort into facilitation and site management. That’s a skilled operation.

The more ambitious you are, the more the costs and management issues increase. Where will the revenue come from, not just to manage and develop systems, but to fund the offline activity?

I suspect that in further discussions to refine Lobbi, those experienced in the field will suggest either focusing on one activity that current platforms and programmes are not offering – and do that really well. Or aim to connect some of the very disparate online activities currently underway. And to be agile – try stuff out small scale, revise and redevelop.

My hunch is that given Hoz’s passion, combined with Steve’s contacts and convening skills, Lobbi might do well by aiming to be as much a movement and community as a new platform. What was very evident at the Downloading Democracy event was the number of people who’ve been around the scene in the last six or seven years welcoming the chance to meet up for a chat. After a burst of activity in 2007-09, and the failed hopes for Big Society, we’ve rather lacked the social spaces to bring together social techies, community activists, new-style democracy advocates … well, forget the labels, I mean people who want to do good stuff locally using a mix of methods new and old.

At local level, there’s general accord that it makes sense – particularly in hard times – to go for an approach that makes as much as you can from the strengths of local people, projects, and buildings before developing new initiatives from scratch and seeking funds that might otherwise support existing initiatives. Map existing assets and networks, and concentrate on community building. Social technology can help in that process, as I’ve explored here and here.

Maybe there’s a couple of new angles for Lobbi: one focused, one more open.

First, if looking for a niche, consider focusing on how to digitally enable the enablers who help build communities. What help do they need in the personal use of technology, how can they help others, how can they enable their organisations. Go person-centric.

Second, take an asset-based approach nationally. Map who is doing what in this first, and aim to build connections both personal and technical. Use that knowledge both to advise and build kits for the enablers, and to create a strong community and movement for technology-enabled social action.

Hoz and Steve have been generous in bearing with the challenges that I and others have raised during earlier discussion, welcomed new ideas and connections, and remained determined to press ahead. With that sort of spirit, Lobbi could be a catalyst for a fresh approach to politics and local action.

As Mick Fealty puts it more eloquently in his report:

There’s a term in evolutionary biology called punctuated equilibrium which suits the uncertain times we are living in. The gist is that big changes in living organisms largely occur in short episodic bursts when their external environment undergoes some form of drastic change. In such terms, the current multiple crises in democracy is being driven by sudden and rapid technological advances in human communication.

The resulting uncertainty is a necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories and practices for how we might functionally respond, both as collectives (nations, communities, sharers of a global environment) and individuals (politicians, priests and citizens). None of us really know where any of this is taking us, though we can see and feel seriousness of the deficits that arise as a result of the disruption of ‘business as usual’. There are no road maps.

When life isn’t business as usual, we need people like Hoz and Steve. If only to get me blogging about this stuff again.

The idea of an exploration as on open curating and reporting process came about from some work with the Big Lottery Fund, and then when the Nominet Trust invited me to write a provocations paper about young people and technology. Background on that here.

Instead of a closed research and drafting process, why not crowdsource ideas, run a workshop, develop contacts and aim to generate momentum around the topic at the same time? As I’ve summarised here, that process worked well on our latest exploration as well as the earlier one.

We now have a report with 10 proposition about digital technology and later life, a lot of background resources, and a network of people interested in learning more. You can join that network here.

It’s now time to see what more we can achieve, and to do that it seems appropriate to move from the structured approach we designed with our client on socialreporters.net, to something more free range, personal, and maybe a bit more provocative. I’ve explained the reasoning here.

John Popham has already made a start with an excellent post following up an issue I highlighted – the lack of collaboration between the bigger organisations in the field. That’s partly, I think, because there is intense competition for funding and little trust that a good idea or new theme won’t be picked up by another organisation without an offer of some part to play. However, John raises an even more fundamental issue:

The professionals and institutions which work with some older people are not comfortable with new technologies themselves. Issues here range from organisations which continue to block use of social media and will not or cannot provide their staff with smartphones, to technophobic frontline staff who pass their fears on to people they work with.

The organisations researching or promoting the use of digital technology with older people, often under the digital inclusion banner, may not be using it. Their “clients” are in reality funders who may not have a very nuanced idea of what’s needed either … so policy and development defaults to teaching people how to use computers and getting the numbers up for those allegedly engaged.

John identifies another couple of barriers to progress: the scariness of unfamiliar technology, and the lack of confidence (or willingness) of those who may be able to help older people to do so.

While these issues may be particularly evident later in life, I think they apply to many organisations and for many people at any time in life.

So one of the themes I’ll be exploring is whether we might use the challenges, and opportunities, of digital technology later in life as a good window through which to look at technology in life.  Our tag has been #dtlater. Should it now be #dtinlife? The government’s policy of moving services – and benefits – online means that opting out is difficult. Either you learn to cope with tech, or have someone act as a proxy.

Below are some of the 10 propositions we developed for the digital tech later in life exploration, that seem generally relevant to any time of life. Full report here.

• Look at personal needs and interests as well as common motivations – one digital size won’t fit all.
• Build on past experience with familiar technology as well as offering new devices – they may do the job.
• Consider the new life skills and access people will need as technology changes our world – using technology is ceasing to be optional.
• Turn the challenge of learning about technology into a new social opportunity – and make it fun.
• Address social isolation and other challenges through a blend of online and offline – they don’t need to be different worlds.
• Use digital technologies to enhance existing connections of family and friends – and help each other learn.
• Look for ideas among those providing digital training and support – and help them realise them.

Here’s the main links cited above

• Ten propositions about digital technology in later life – on this blog
• Summary and update on our digital tech later in life exploration – on socialreporters.net
• Background resources for the exploration – on Storify.com
• Learning network on digital tech later in life
• Moving from exploration to cooperation – and moving from socialreporters.net to personal blogs
• Social technology in later life – let’s have some collaboration – John Popham

The aim, on behalf of the Nominet Trust, was to identify where anyone developing projects or investing funds might best focus. There’s a summary here of the open process that that Drew Mackie, Steve Dale, John Popham and I used to develop a draft report and the 10 summary propositions below.

While the main aim of the exploration has been to develop a consensus to guide development and investment in the field, the open nature of the approach yielded a lot of insights into who is doing what in the field, and how more might be achieved. More on that in the next post.

Ten propositions about digital technology later in life.

1 Look at personal needs and interests as well as common motivations – one digital size won’t fit all. While there are general benefits at any time of life in using digital technology – whether for entertainment, shopping, learning, information – everyone has different priorities and these will be shaped by life experience and current circumstances. The best way to engage people is to start where they are, the particular interests they have developed, and the personal challenges they face.

2 Build on past experience with familiar technology as well as offering new devices – they may do the job. New devices can be challenging, and recent developments of familiar equipment may offer an easier route for some. Smart TVs and smartphones may provide what’s needed without learning to use a computer.

3 Consider the new life skills and access people will need as technology changes our world – using technology is ceasing to be optional. Public services are becoming digital by default, and new opportunities for employment require at least an email address. It will be important to make the use of digital technology as accessible and easy as possible – or encourage people to act as “proxies” in helping make the connection with the online world.

4 Turn the challenge of learning about technology into a new social opportunity – and make it fun. Learning how to use digital technology can challenging. It takes time, and having someone to help can be important. Loneliness and isolation are a big challenge for some later in life. By getting together so learning becomes a social experience we can achieve benefits on both fronts, and enjoy the experience as well.

5 See digital technology for later in life as a major market – co-designing with users could offer wider relevance. On the one hand people are living and remaining active longer, and on the other hand facing a wide range of health and social challenges for longer. This will provide a growing market among older people, and an opportunity to design and test technologies for relevance and usability with any users than have diverse interests and capabilities.

6 Address social isolation and other challenges through a blend of online and offline – they don’t need to be different worlds. Digital technology can enable virtual friendships that lead to meetings, support social learning, and underpin projects for new forms of sharing both on the physical world and online. The greatest benefits may come from blending face-to-face and online activities.

7 Enable carers and care services – both for direct use of technology and to act as proxies.More could be achieved by integrating digital technology into services, and supporting carers in their use of technology. This will be increasingly important as older people who are not connected may require “proxy” helpers to use online public services.

8 Use digital technologies to enhance existing connections of family and friends – and help each other learn. Free video calls, photo-sharing, email, texting and the use of social networking sites are part of day-to-day communications with family and friends for many people later in life. Family members can help each other learn about digital technologies.

9 Value the role that older people may have in acting as digital technology champions – and providing long term support. Older people know the challenges of using technology later in life, and may be best at providing the continuing support needed for its adoption. Demonstrations and short courses are seldom enough.

10 Look for ideas among those providing digital training and support – and help them realise them. Those working directly with users of digital technology will have insights into what works, and where development would be valuable. With some support they could turn ideas into projects.

• A summary of the exploration on socialreporters.net
• All posts in the exploration
• The draft we produced for Nominet Trust
• Previous exploration into digital technology and young people

** Why the big gap in blogging here? I’m not sure … I just ran out of enthusiasm for the rather unfocussed reporting I had been doing. These days it is difficult to get much commenting on blogs, because there are so many places for conversation, so posts don’t usually yield much feedback. Tweets notifying posts may get retweeted (and thanks for that) but does it make much difference for the time spend in writing? The idea of collaborative, open explorations at socialreporters.net (one for Big Lottery Fund, two for Nominet Trust) has been more rewarding … not least because it yields a fee!

However, as I’ll explain in the next post explorations for clients do have some necessary constraints, and it is useful to have somewhere to fly some personal opinions. So I’m hoping to regain momentum here.

The Institute of Community Reporters – which I wrote about earlier – has produced its first discussion paper, exploring the different between community reporting and citizen journalism.

I think the paper is very good … not least because it sets out far more cogently than I did some of the issues I nibbled at in More rebranding of citizen media as “journalism. ” Sigh”.  I argued that just because people post videos or use blogs to produce content about their communities doesn’t mean they follow the news-dominated agenda of journalism, which may be good for some campaigning,  but not for community building.

In the paper, Teresa Wilson, Partnership Manager at People’s Voice Media, distinguishes between news, and story.

Story can be the means by which we work out our thoughts and ideas about who we are and how we connect to those around us. It can be an exploration, a search for meaning or an offering up to others. From a community development point of view, story is an extremely useful tool for helping people to locate themselves in their own lives and their communities. And more importantly, it is universal and there are no prerequisites required in order to tell a story.

We all have something to say and stories to tell about our lives and this is our starting point for Community Reporting. From here, we support people through a process of refining communication, developing new skills, thinking more about the audience for their stories and the impact they want those stories to have. Some of the stories that Community Reporters tell might be considered ‘newsworthy’, but the heart of Community Reporting is in individuals telling stories about their own lives rather than reporting on news, an approach that serves to benefit both the individual and the community.

As Simon Safari, Chair of the Tenants’ Association in Botkyrka, Stockholm says, “I believe that we need more thinking to create sustainable communities, and [giving people] the right to describe their own reality is one of them.”

I strongly recommend reading the Community Reporting and Citizen Journalism paper in full, together with the explanation  of the Venn diagram I have linked, above.

Teresa explains the role of the Institute in developing some quality assurance around the role of community reporter, with editorial guidelines, training, and the opportunity to work with other reporters. Teresa concludes that reclaiming the term reporters is important …

… because for us it means family. It’s a network of people joined together by a common set of goals and values, sharing their successes and frustrations and learning from each other in the process. We hope to see the network grow and the model continue to support more of the kind of people who wouldn’t traditionally create content for the web into the wonderful world of content creation, where their stories and views count, and where they feel ultimately more connected to the world around them.

I hope social reporters get honorary membership too.

The idea behind the 3D4D Challenge is to apply the ability to design in one place, and construct in another, to the reduction of costs and poverty in communities that do not have the funds or facilities to construct, say, parts for a water pump or a prosthetic limb. If they have a RepRap printer, costing about $300, they could print out parts and maybe help develop local small businesses.

I then went along to the London workshop to hear some evolving ideas, and shot some video. As the challenge team report, it was a great success.

The next workshop will be in Bucharest later this week, and to highlight that I though it would be interesting to hear from one of the others participants in the Challenge. Thanks to Rosie Wilson I got in touch with Dr Phil Reeves, who is managing director of Econolyst, which advises companies around the world on the use of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing. Econolyst are a sponsor of 3d4d, and Phil has been enormously helpful in providing support throughout the process.

I wanted to explore the mutual benefit in this kind of innovation process. We didn’t manage to meet up, but Phil swifted responded to an email interview request.

What interests you in the discussion and ideas coming up at the workshops?

As a company we have spent years taking with manufacturers and consumers within the west about how 3D Printing can be used to improve the retail experience or provide personalised consumer products. The 3D4D Challenge opens up a whole new debate about now 3D Printing can support people’s needs rather than wants. I love the ideas coming out of the workshops, as they are all focused on improving peoples quality of life, rather than personal vanity or consumerism. The ideas are driven by genuine need within societies and economies we in the west have very little understanding of. However, with 3DP we are putting the tools into the hands of the people who see the problems first hand – that excites me…..

What’s the benefit for Econolyst and how can you help?

For Econolyst we are benefiting by gaining a much wider appreciation of now 3DP can be used, it is expanding our knowledge and experience and as a consultancy firm that is paramount. In terms of what we are giving back, hopefully it is years on experience in how to use these technologies for economic and sustainable advantage.

What wider interest are you seeing around the world in these innovations?

3DP is finding its way into so many aspect of our life, from healthcare products and devices such as hip implants, dental aligners and hearing aids, through to consumer goods such as lamp shades, toys, furniture and IPhone covers. The technology is also finding its way into aerospace and automotive applications as well as defence and power generation. We are now able to produce production components using 3DP in metals, polymers and ceramics. In the future we also expect to see 3DP of human tissue and cells used in regenerative medicine.

What maintains your enthusiasm for these developments?

We live in a digitally connected world, where the internet and data have revolutionised many industries from music, films and TV, through to hotel and travel booking. 3DP enables this internet revolution to extend into the manufacture of tangible products. Using social media and home based 3DP it also allows anyone with a great product to become both a factory and a retail outlet. Democratising manufacturing to all.

What makes a winning application?

For the 3D4D Challenge a winning application will be one that truly exploits the flexibility and digital connectivity of 3D Printing, but at the same time brings a real social benefit to people living in the developing world. That might be agricultural development, healthcare, education or access to clean drinking water. We would love to see ideas that address these import issue using 3DP, maybe integrated with mobile phone technology or the internet. In short it is all about improving lives using technology.

What’s going to happen at the Bucharest workshop?

In Bucharest we will be meeting with a group of engineering students, graduates, innovators and academics. Like over 3D4D events in Kenya, South Africa, India, London and America we will be explaining the concept and rules of the challenge. But, I am also going to be giving a couple of short seminars on 3D Printing. The first will cover the drivers to technology adoption and why it is progressively being used by companies and innovators. In the second session we are going to getting down to the technical stuff and discussing the capabilities and constraints of different 3DP processes. The idea is to give the guys in Bucharest as much knowledge as possible to come up with some great ideas

You can find more here about the challenge, and how to get involved

Here are the video interviews that I shot. I’ve summarised below, with links to each interview. The playlist is here.

In thinking about the new exploration, I was particularly interested in Sean Brady’s description of how he became a network weaver after being a parish councillor (referencing Tessy Britton and Eileen Conn along the way), and Lorna Prescott’s conviction that people working in local communities can start using digital tools easily with some support. Nick Booth and Dave Briggs provide some tips on how to do that.

Annette Albert provides an honest assessment of what it means for a non tech person to run a local online community – an enormous achievement on her part, with 1200 members. Vicky Sargent and Steve Brett emphasise the need to blend online and face-to-face activity to engage people in neighbourhood plans.

The online community notice board n0tice.com got a lot of mentions as a way to curate information about events, online activity and wants and offers. I can see that becoming even more popular. Franzi Bahrle is taking an interesting approach with VisualBrum.

On the wider front, I was particularly interested to hear from Will Perrin and Alex Delaney that TAL and Media Trust will be collaborating in future. Maybe there’s scope for a tie-in with People’s Voice Media, whose Institute of Community Reporters I wrote about recently. Philip John and Simon Perry talked about the Hyperlocal Alliance, and Dave Briggs has invited everyone to join in developing the Hyperlocal Handbook.

Here’s the interviews

• Will Perrin talks about the changes he has seen on the hyperlocal scene since he founded Talk About Local three years ago, and updates on TAL development.
• Sean Brady, formerly a Parish Councillor, who now runs Formby First, describes how he became a network weaver in his community, joining up people in different organisations.
• Sarah Hartley, TAL managing director, and Community Strategist at Guardian Media Group, explains the n0tice.com online community notice board, which she helped develop.
• Annette Albert reflects on 2 years running the W14 and SW6 online community in London.
• Philip John and Simon Perry talk to me about the session on the Hyperlocal Alliance for those running local sites.
• Vicky Sargent, and Steve Brett from Wirksworth, Derbyshire, ran a session about engaging people in the development of neighbourhood plans .
• Mike Rawlins talked about the value of geotagging content.
• Nick Booth and Dave Briggs chat about social media surgeries and other ways to help people learn about the online world.
• Lorna Prescott desribes how she and the groups she works with in Dudley will explore how to use n0tice.com and other tools.
• Simon Gray on how online sociability continues (Simon has been online since 1986) even if the people and platforms change.
• Will Perrin and Alex Delaney of the Media Trust Newsnet project explain future collaboration.
• Franzi Bahrle explains why she set up VisualBrum using the online community notice board n0tice.com.

The first Talk About Local unconference was in Stoke on Trent in 2009, as I reported here, and where I shot these interviews.

Playlist for TAL09 here.

The always-helpful marketing director  Gavin Sheppard provided a very full update, which I’m delighted to quote here:

Hi David, interesting piece – totally agree with Gary’s views about the difference between citizen journalism and community reporting, and actually supports our view, I think, that it’s not as much what it’s called that matters as what people are doing and why it matters to them.

We’ve been focusing more on community reporting and community media and as you know will be supporting innovation in these areas with some inspiring voices grant awards via the newsnet forums.

We’ve also been appointing more beacon projects, some of whom we’re working with intensively to help amplify what they’re doing locally and all of whom are great reference points for anyone interested in how this kind of thing is manifested in different communities.

We’ve launched a programme to support beacon projects with equipment and have been providing bespoke training and mentoring locally (Adam has a blog of some of the people he’s worked with). We’ve continued to increase the number of newsnet members, who are starting to use the online resources to develop their own local projects.

We’ve increased the number of UK360 community news shows to one per week and have had a great response from the 60 communities who have featured in the show as well as from viewers (“Having taken the time and effort to produce a short film that we believe is a cut above the usual community production, we looked around for other outlets that might help us to get our message across and were surprised to discover UK360 – a series with high production values that was already broadcasting on Freeview”) and even the Daily Mail (who say “This thoroughly worthwhile weekly magazine brings community stories to life”).

We’re also broadcasting London360, which is focused on untold community stories in the capital and is made by a team of volunteer young journalists, as well as a wealth of other community content through Community Channel online and on TV (Here’s the TV schedule), including our new Arts360 strand which aims to engage young people in arts and cultural reporting.
Community Newswire, which we provide in partnership with The Press Association, is up to full capacity and has already distributed more than 4,000 community and charity stories into the mainstream local, regional and national media around the UK. We’re going to start geo-tagging that content and making the feed more widely available also.

We’ve launched Local360 in beta at communitychannel.org, which currently contains stories from newswire, UK360 and London360, but which will start to include community reporter content from around the country uploaded via newsnet. This feed is being made available to other platforms and we plan to make it available to anyone who wants it, either for their own consumption or for publication on their own local sites etc.

We’re working with Will Perrin and his teams to further develop the newsnet resources and find our next round of beacon projects, and are supporting this weekend’s unconference. We are also working with Jacqui and her team at the Community Media Association to provide more outlets for their great content and with NESTA as a partner in their Destination Local project as well as a number of partner projects, such as the Village SOS events, at which we’re providing community media workshops.

Next steps for us are to get the Local360 content feed working well and finding new outlets for it, perhaps working with partner organisations to surface the content in innovative new ways, increasing the number of beacon projects and providing more support to them as well as highlighting them as an inspiration to other communities who may want to pursue community media, and supporting other organisations with resources, content and outlets to amplify their work and bring it to new audiences and increase their reach and impact locally.

With Newsnet focussed on links to mainstream media and TV output, as well as supporting beacon projects; accredited training from PVM, and Talk About Local’s growing network and hands-on support for sites, there’s a rich of complementary activities in the hyperlocal field.

Until a few weeks ago I confess that I didn’t know much about 3D printing … and was amazed when William Hoyle told me about a printer that could reproduce itself. Well, most of itself. Would I like to go and interview the inventor? Yes indeed.

That led to a meet-up with Dr Adrian Bowyer at Bath University, an opportunity to see the RepRap machine in action, and a small contribution to the 3D4D Challenge that is launched today by the technology charity techfortrade of which William is the chief executive.

As you’ll see from the interview, featured here, the RepRap and similar machines can take a design from a linked computer and use plastics or metal to gradually build up a three-dimensional object. There are web sites like Thingiverse that will provide designs for toys, gear wheels, gadgets and more. The Economist says this is part of The Third Industrial Revolution.

The idea behind the 3D4D Challenge is to apply the ability to design in one place, and construct in another, to the reduction of costs and poverty in communities that do not have the funds or facilities to construct, say, parts for a water pump or a prosthetic limb. If they have a RepRap printer, costing about $300, they could print out parts and maybe help develop local small businesses.

They could also print out the majority of another printer for a neighbouring community. Not everything, like the electronics, can be printed – but other necessary parts can be ordered at relatively modest cost.

The Challenge offers a prize of $100,000, with ideas being developed at workshops in New York, London, Johannesburg and Nairobi. Details of those here.

The Challenge is also being supported by 3D printer and rapid manufacturing machine companies MakerBot and Econolyst.

There’s a longer version of the interview with Adrian Bowyer here. He explains that the inspiration for the RepRap is biological, drawn in part from the symbiotic relationships between plants and bees. Plants need the bees to pollinate … RepRaps need people to put their parts together.

Adrian is keen that RepRaps should develop on the Darwinian principles of survival and development of the fittest. The best RepRaps will be copied and re-copied. To achieve that, it is important that development is unrestricted … so the design is open source. As he says, if you want your printers to multiply, the last thing you want to do is spend time in court trying to stop people copying them.

Inspirational, and useful, and fun, and getting cheaper. Must succeed.

• The 3D4D Challenge
• 3D printing
• Dr Adrian Bowyer
• The RepRap self-replicating machine
• The World’s First Commercial 3-D chocolate printer
• The Third Industrial Revolution: The Economist

In a news release Gary Copitch, PVM’s Chief Executive says: “We now have over 1000 reporters on the database from across the UK and a further 600 across Europe so it seems to make sense to develop the network and recognise the achievement of the reporters.”

Gary emphasises what he sees as the difference between citizen journalism and community reporting:

Community Reporting is a community development tool with individuals producing the content/stories they want to in order to encourage dialogue and discussion and establish online and offline networks. We feel this is different to citizen journalism where the emphasis is more often on individuals reporting on other people’s news.

This chimes in with some discussion sparked by Richard Millington, who blogged that hyperlocal sites were struggling, because of too much focus on technology and on news-style content, adding:

What we need is a genuine community building approach. You identify your first members, initiate discussions, invite members to participate in those discussions, write content about what’s happening in the community, and repeat as you grow.

More here on the PVC institute:

The Institute of Community Reporters (ICR) will be the accrediting body for the Community Reporter programme. It will accredit courses, issues certificates and manage the Community Reporter badge scheme. The ICR will also:

• Provide access to online training resources and support for running local meet ups
• Host Community Reporter content on the communityreporter.co.uk web site
• Curate content at a European, national, local and organisational level to feed into policy and consultation

There will be three types of membership, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Platinum members will be for authorised trainers who have completed the ICR training programme.

I’ve raised the issue of the value of citizen journalism in community building before here, and on the Media Trust Newsnet site, which started with a commitment to a journalistic approach, while offering support to a wider range of projects including a competition.

There should be a chance to discuss this issue, among many others, next Saturday at the Talk About Local unconference - updates here – which will be a gathering of the liveliest of the country’s hyperlocal bloggers, and managers of community sites.

These various approaches to citizen-generated content, and other aspects of local media, are being studied by the innovation agency NESTA as part of its programme to support the hyperlocal sector, as I reported here. Talk About Local are one of the partners. There’s a detailed report on the hyperlocal scene, commission by NESTA, available here, written by Damian Radcliffe.

I think there’s value in a diversity of approaches. Which route to go depends, as usual, on what you want to achieve. Holding local councils and agencies to account may best be done through a lively mix of news and discussion like that at Pits n Pots in Stoke on Trent.

Sites like Harringay Online and W14 provide all members with an opportunity to contribute in ways that reflect their many and varied interests.  People’s Voice Media is focussing on training for citizens to develop their own reporting skills using a range of media, rather than necessarily developing and maintaining sites.

I’m currently particularly interested in how community and social reporting approaches can be adopted by community builders and organisers, who don’t see reporting as their main activity but can benefit from the use of new technologies.

The challenge for those promoting these approaches is how, on the one hand, to acknowledge the need for a variety of styles and methods, while on the other hand providing a sufficiently distinctive offering to appeal to funders and other customers. I think the People’s Voice Media Institute, and associated training, shows how the sector is maturing in its search for different business models.

I’ve no doubt there will be plenty more innovation surfacing at the Talk About Local unconference, where NESTA and Guardian Media Group are sponsors.