Iran Election : London Protest : Social Media

I just met this group of young Iranians and supporters on Waterloo Bridge. They’re campaigning on the recent Iranian voting scandal and will be protesting in London outside the Iranian embassy this Saturday as part of the http://www.whereismyvote.org/ global day of action on July 25th from 1-4pm.

“The Global Day of Action is not affiliated with any partisan political agenda and is aimed at securing the internationally recognized rights of the Iranian people”

Interesting to see local groups getting active and handing out flyers in such a positive and friendly way, I think it really works well. I’d say that I’m far more likely to go along to something if asked in person rather than tweeted at, emailed or facebook-messaged. Social media is great, but sometimes having a chat is what’s really the motivator.

As it is, I’m off on holiday from tomorrow so can’t be there, so went to the website to find out more about what I could do online instead. Joining a Facebook group is not as good as turning up by any means, but its a way of showing support and keeping in touch with the cause, and other opportunities to act in real life. 

Aha! So that might be what social media is for….?

—- Newsflash! —-In ‘Other Inspiring Iranians I’ve met on Waterloo Bridge’, see my Ahmad Foroughi post from the time of the Obama Election – an awesome photo, and a sweet piece of social history!

Evaluating online engagement

Hello all. Apparently that post before last was a bit long… well, I’m afraid I just had alot to get off my chest on global-local deliberation on climate change!

Today I’ll be brief to make up for it…

My presentation for the Participation and Social Media Action Learning set run by Tim Davies  at LGIU is right here.

It is *hopefully a simple starting point for evaluation aimed at those setting up an online engagement project. My main argument was that a good evaluation tells a compelling story through combining qualitative  and quantitative information in a clear format to key decision makers and practitioners.

Blogging Ideas : Pakistani Spectator

A -kind of- festive post for you before the holiday season kicks off for real… I read a few international blogs through the excellent global voices and one of the active ones is the Pakistani Spectator. Ghazala Khan does a regular series of interviews with bloggers from all over the place and it was my turn last week: 

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

I write about public involvement in decision making. This is actually takes in quite a wide range of different issues, from the tension between different modes of governance and electoral systems to how individuals collaborate on decision making in their own communities, both locally and online. I blog here.

    Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?

I think everyone learns as they write more frequently – it forces you to order your thoughts in a structured format and to try and imagine how others might understand your meaning. Having said that, I feel that the most important thing is to get out from behind the keyboard and monitor and to speak with a whole range of different people to gain inspiration whenever possible. That’s where you find opportunities to grow as an individual and as a member of several wider communities.

    I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

My favourite recent post was an interview with an Obama supporter on London bridge – I took a quick photo of him with my camera phone and it came out so well – really capturing the enthusiasm and spirit of the moment. I was affected by the belief of an individual that genuine change can come from those at the top rather than the cynicism that is often expressed towards decision makers in the UK.

    What do you do in order to keep up your communication with other bloggers?

I use RSS feeds to keep up to date – attempt to keep my netvibes page which pulls all of those feeds together in good order. Then of course, I read and comment when I have some spare time.

    What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?

In politics, it has to be the Obama campaign in terms of excitement and the interplay between online connection and offline action. This was a very powerful mix and am very glad to see this strong emphasis on online tools continuing. See obamacto for an interesting take on what should happen next!

    Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?

I do think that new technology can make people feel more personally connected than ever before, and more able to respond quickly and easily to causes or issues that they are interested in. Not only this, I think that it can supplement our existing networks in new ways which are only just beginning to be realised.

    What do you think sets Your site apart from others?

It focuses on public participation and involvement from a personal perspective. I work for an organistion called www.involve.org.uk which is based in the UK – this enables me to look at public engagement and participation from a more analytical viewpoint during the day – then my blog covers the aspect I feel is often not covered so well – what do these ideas and projects mean for real people in their working and home lives?

    If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success in life, what would it be?

Critical optimism!

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?

I’m not sure on this one – life is a journey and I’m usually looking forwards not back!

    If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for – what would your top 3 choices be?

I like this question – I’d go to Tierra del Fuego to see lava pouring into the sea, then drop by Venezuela to see the Angel Falls, and then maybe to Dongtan to see the eco city… in a year or two.

   What is your favorite book and why?

I don’t have a favourite – I love reading and lots of books have strong meaning for me – one would be ….read the rest here

Enjoy the holidays! 

(Yes, I know the life is a journey line is a bit Forest Gump –  is tough not to be able to edit your words after you write them…!)

Goodgym Wins @ Social Innovation Camp

What is Social Innovation Camp?

Well, the sicamp website explains far better than I could here and here so in their own cut n’ pasted words, the idea is basically that:

The web has already had a huge impact on the way we live our lives: it has changed how we communicate, how we entertain ourselves, our friendships and the way we work. Now it is going to change how we access our health care, how we educate our children and how we provide for the most vulnerable in our communities….

Social Innovation Camp is an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age.

It  is a competition to find the best ideas for web tools to create social change, a participant-driven event aimed at bringing together software developers and designers with those at the sharp end of social need: social innovators, entrepreneurs and those with direct experience of need themselves.

Got that?

So I spent the last weekend holed up in the basement of The Young Foundation working with a bunch of talented people with a whole range of different skills in order to build a prototype webtool, business model, social case and funding pitch for a project called The Good Gym. Which then won!

The idea of GoodGym is to provide isolated or immobile older people with regular human contact and to provide motivation for people to run and get fit.   The Good Gym aims to make it easy for people to channel the energy used up as part of their exercise routine  toward a wider social good.  The project will set up a matching and vetting service for joggers/cyclists to integrate brief visits to isolated older people into their regular exercise routines.

Here’s the final presentation which should explain a bit more of the detail. Check out the other finalists here.(The sheer amount of work done on AccessCity is worth a look!)

So, just goes to show – lock people with different skills together in a room, feed them, give them a deadline and an incentive – result = a bunch of amazing online projects for social good!

Now to sustain the momentum…will keep you posted.

CauseWired : A Web 2.0 Book Review

Review In Brief: Causewired is a new book by Tom Watson which chronicles next generation social activism, or the ’causewired’ phenomenon – people connecting directly on social issues using the web to make a difference in real life. Its pretty interesting, has some good real life examples of the power of web 2.0 so you should probably go & check it out!

Review in Full: Its true that I don’t habitually get my news through the broadsheets anymore – and that when I do get the chance to spread out the newspapers and browse through them it feels like a luxury. Maybe its something to do with the amount of time and concentration it takes to rifle through and unfold the various supplements, find what I’m looking for without a search engine, and then read something with a wordcount longer than 500 in its entirety without any links to source material or comments from other readers to distract me…. ;)

Despite my lack of dexterity and slight attention dysfunction – I do still persevere with getting information in this way, albeit less often than I used to. Of course, this move away from the printed press doesn’t mean that I read any less information, or that I’m accessing it less often. In fact my information sources are far greater in number, infinitely more diverse and (too) frequently accessed by me than ever thanks to RSS, e-newsletters, blogs, Twitter, online journals, and regular Amazon deliveries of the latest books to take my fancy.

So… I’ve increased my digestion of online, interactive, peer to peer, user generated news and info alongside a scaled down consumption of the of printed stuff; but whatever printed articles and books I do choose to take the time out to read from this deluge of information - I’m reading them quite differently now.

The way I access and absorb information has become far more interactive. As I read, I am more actively re-evaluating the text than before, wondering what other people I know think of the material and (much to the irritation of certain print fanatics!) am constantly writing notes in the margin of printed articles/books and intermittently googling references as I go…wondering more than ever before ‘what does this actually mean in practice for me, for my work, friends family?’ etc.

So, bearing in mind all of the above, I hope you’ll better understand what I did when I received a copy of Tom Watson’s new book CauseWired last week and why it matters.

What I did when I received Tom Watson’s CauseWired last week … and was it worth it?

Unsurprisingly perhaps, I started reading from the beginning, marking the interesting sections in the margin (of which there were many) and then googling my favourite references and quotes in what proved to be a fascinating chronicle of the way in which social media and connectedness is changing the face of philanthropy and activism.

Tom W writes clear and interesting accounts of how regular people have used social media tools to highlight the ongoing issues they face in their community or that they care about across the globe. He disscusses the citizen-led coverage of New Orleans post Katrina, of how Darfur and cancer research centres came to be so well supported on Facebook, of how the face of political campaigning is being changed forever, and many other fascinating practical examples of social web tools in action. I googled all of this stuff, and proceeded to skip around a few chapters back and forth and skimmed some bits, went on to discuss the references with colleagues and IM’d a couple of friends about what I’d read. Then I joined the Facebook group and contacted the author on Twitter to let him know I’d be writing something up about his book on my blog.

Then I lent the book to someone else interested in online stuff – and I hope to get it back to read the bits where I left off to go googling… :) Then I watched some Obama videos on YouTube, joined a Darfur campaign group on Facebook and sent an awareness raising video to a few friends, and finally, I clicked online to donate some money to a small charity in Africa that I only heard of and keep in touch with through email/blogposts.

The book is a great resource for anybody who wants to better understand what all this web 2.0 stuff actually does, and what it means for ordinary people right across the globe when it comes to social change.

So, yes, it was worth reading; and what is more, it was worth passing on, so I wrote it up here on my blog.

Web 2.0 is changing everything we do in a whole variety of ways both online and crucially in our everyday lives -some of these shifts are more subtle than others and they even apply to a bog standard book review like this one.

So below, please find the rest of my web 2.0 book review, or in other words – check out these links for more info. What you choose to do with that info will be the interesting part… :)

Max Gladwell

Steve MacLaughlin

The Mongoose

David Bailey

Catalyst Awards : And the winner is…

Catalyst Awards

 

Am just back from the rather brilliant Catalyst Awards  – designed to encourage innovation around social technology for community benefit. There were some really fantastic projects nominated as finalists including:

 

 Rafi.ki  a global citizenship project which partners schools across the world, facilitating connections through the wonder of social tech.

LocalEyes, which provides a platform for citizen voice from a grass roots level up, and aims to connect people at a very local level. (And which was commended for future potential.)

BigArtMob which simply uses interactive mapping to build up a map of public art across the UK

 Yoosk! - an innovative question answering facility which connects public figures with citizens

EnabledbyDesign - an online community whose ultimate aim is to make independent living more accessible through the use of clever modern design

I just wanted to highlight these few catalyst finalists who didn’t scoop one of the main prizes as I thought they were also brilliant ideas. Check out the award winners here.

The only bad point about the morning was having to climb five floors in high heels cause the lift was being held for ‘a senior cabinet minister’ AKA the PM…. Poor plebian Casey.

However, he made up (a bit) for this great inconvenience by chipping in with a decent speech about the future of social innovation and also mentioned future work focusing on the Criminal Justice System.

It all sounds very positive etc. and am looking forward to the follow up at Chain Reaction later this year.

Power of Social Media : Zimbabwe

This site (Sokwanele) is one of the most powerful campaign sites I’ve come across.

Superb use of flickr, twitter, mapping, e-cards and blog to get the Zimbabwe pro democracy message out.

Zimbabwe 2008

 

“Sokwanele – Zvakwana is a peoples’ movement, embracing supporters of all pro-democratic political parties, civic organizations and institutions in Zimbabwe. Sokwanele and Zvakwana both mean ‘enough is enough’ in the vernacular.”

Thanks to GalloManor for original heads up.

There’s a plan?

Yes, the rumours are true – there is a plan…

I’ve been thinking how to structure this blog thingummy in a way that will make it a useful resource – and moreover to make sure it hits the spot somewhere between interesting and informative – hopefully managing both simultaneously! See my introductory post. 

So … I plan to split up the subject matter as best I can into three areas:

1.Public participation in all its many and varied forms (tag/category:pubpart)

2.How my blogging is going – documenting my learning and general web-based flailing around (tag/category:blogging)

3. A few links to interesting bits and pieces that I find lying around the wwweb – all work and no play is dull after all…. :) (tag/category:stuff)

To try and help you order this info I’m going separately tag all of my off topic non-participation related posts categorise as ’stuff’, then make sure that all of my public participation and blogging posts have either blogging or pubpart on there as a tag and category. Simple eh?

Er, yes you blogging novice, but what’s this pubpart thing?

Well, what it is not, is something to do with hanging around having a hearty drink, nor is it the opposite of privatepart. (Although thanks for those suggestions people!)

What it IS, is a way of trying to bring together all of the many diverse participation-related resources and information from across youth, health, development, community - all policy areas both online and off by marking them with a recognisable tag in a community tagging project. This could work much like the nptech tag monitored by Beth Kanter in this weekly digest or along the lines of the tag aggregator recently used by ruralnet in their co-design process.

Please check out Tim Davies’ far more considered explanation of how pubpart will work here.

A public participation community certainly exists both in the UK and internationally but as a whole is so loose and fragmented across a number of policy areas and interests that there are few places that draw together expertise from across the board.

[Check out www.peopleandparticipation.net for one such cross-policy participation effort. I think its a good start, but then I am quite biased as I do work for Involve! Let me know what you think about the site on here:) ]

The idea of using a community tagging system like pubpart is one way of further unifying the many different voices out there which touch on various aspects of public participation and involvement, be it edemocracy, social media, PPI networks etc.

I’d be really interested to know what you think about the idea and to know if you’ll be joining in yourself.

—-

My link of today: 

Do poor people use Yahoo and those better off use Google?

If this is so, what does it say about online cultures?