Hi David, just signed up to the 'revitalised' site - I would be interested in participating in a space to develop the type of events that might be used to develop civil society - my take would be more focussed around young people though...

Thanks Dave - and also picked up the discussion here.
I agree about blogging under a personal banner, which is one reason I moved.
I was wondering whether to using Designing for Civil Society as the banner for a new sort of site with a focus on games and interactive events, linked to howto resources. I could import some stuff from here allowing me to close the Typepad account. Or I do have a neighbourhoods domain ...

I'm still here! Nice to see DfCS popping up again in my Google Reader!

To be honest I think DfCS is the perfect title for the challenges we are facing at the moment, and for the areas of interest that seem to be cropping up.

But perhaps if you have moved on in your blogging, whatever you write about belongs in the space you're inhabiting now. I've often thought about returning to LGNewMedia for local government social media stuff, but no... best not to go back.

Maybe this is a reason why it's best to blog under a banner that's about yourself rather than a particular topic...means you're free to write about whatever you like!

-Matt Wilcox

Thanks Ahmed - what ways have you looked at for people in other countries to help?

Regards: Gal Civil Society Group

GOODBYE AND THANK YOU

I have to admit - I searched on civil site design and your blog came up. I was looking more for the the civil site design that involves moving dirt and hydrology.

Very informative post. Thanks for the info.

I would appreciate you reading my rough drafts for publication and giving me your opinion as well. Especially on the one entitled: "For Costumizable Learing Environments" which seems to be your area of expertise.

Thank you so much.

http://tweaklearning.wordpress.com/articles/

These are some really interesting points. I often worry about the fact that the people who get so excited about technology are often early adopters. If you're working with unempowered, underpriveleged communities, how long does it take for those technologies to be attainable for them? I think CI can take a page from current social work macro practice here, and try to ensure that efforts are centered on the needs and desires of the clients - with most of that effort being led by the communities themselves.

This is a really delightful piece - so accessible and with links to true wonders. Thank you so much.

I would like to follow on from Jack's comment about the transition between Worldviews. All three worldviews are definitely present on the planet today, but in differing degrees. the development of a worldview has a lot to do with the social/emotional and cognitive development of the individual. Which in turn has a lot to do with the physical and economic and social life conditions in which the individual is embedded (the degree of complexity they are faced with and the kind of "problems they have to solve").

In my experience, it is possible to create an environment in which people can evolve through worldviews. The main tool is the "wicked question", which helps us to gain a grasp on our unexamined assumptions about reality...

Hey, we can now read Alberto's posts and shouts, on UnLtdWorld in his wonderful accent!
:)
Richard + Sazzy @ MESOMOCO CIC

Love the idea of "online space may become the frontiers". Too often we think of online as destinations rather than spaces that are starting points, meetings between discur4sive planes, processes not products etc. Let's keep it active and see this world that's evolving as just that... developing, a frontier to explored not a land to be colonised.

Thanks for the link and your comments David. You're absolutely right it's not an either/or - and as you say you often need an inspirational person to kick-start other people into doing things. My interest is trying to ensure that the examples we use inspire people, instead of making them think "I would do something, if only I was as super-talented as that person over there."

Not sure I'll keep both blogs going ... see which way the stories fall. Anyway, I need to move socialreporter off Wordpress.com because of the limited embedding. The ruralnet Wordpess MU platform looks promising.

Hi - Designing for Civil Society also supports "regional community." A link to this post will be in the April 16, 2008 issue of Regional Community Development News. It will be on-line April 17 at http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/ Please visit, check the tools and consider a link. Tom

Do you think this blog is going to be retired? Or is there room for both!?

Thanks Saul - as you say, some common messages are surfacing: I see make the first step in planning what you Don't do; build on what others have done; facilitate open collaboration. But - what are the organisational conditions for that to happen? I'm starting some discussion over at The Membership Project on how far innovation can start within organisations.

I love revisiting these kinds of posts with a bit of hindsight. It's always rewarding to see how things move on and what comes to light as a result.

Tom Steinburg and Ed Mayo's 'Power of Information' report touches on government commissioning policy in relation to 'existing tools':

http://www.commentonthis.com/powerofinformation/#marker10732

They recommend avoiding replication and looking at what people are already doing out there... which is how I understand the innovationexchange was geared to slot into existing communities and tools.

The responses to the report indicate that the message got across to some extent:

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2007/070625_info_res.aspx
http://www.commentonthis.com/powerresponse/#marker11318

"The Government agrees that needless duplication is unsatisfactory. Government should neither smother nor crowd out innovators. The strength of new technologies is that, for example, a substantial self-help discussion forum with many tens of thousands of members can be run by one person as a volunteer. Or, indeed, ownership may be far from clear, being in the hands of many volunteers and stakeholders."

But also points to the possible issues that won't be resolved in a hurry:

http://www.commentonthis.com/powerresponse/#marker11319

"However, in a strict procurement, accountability and legal framework, it is challenging for government to rely wholly upon such organisations for delivering advice, especially on sensitive or controversial issues. Such challenges are often encountered when working in the offline world with the third sector and can be resolved with an appropriate risk management approach."

The context is quite different - the report is about public sector information rather than innovation, but I think the issue about procurement procedures is relevant.

It's really difficult to reconcile 'due diligence' in commissioning with emergent innovation processes, which precludes many funding routes for them.

Perhaps that will change with time. "Strict procurement, accountability and legal frameworks" might give way to structures that are more amenable to emergent innovation practices: distributed decision-making, transparency, and open source.

I'll try revisit this idea again in a year or so - see what's happened. ;)

I love revisiting these kinds of posts with a bit of hindsight. It's always rewarding to see how things move on and what comes to light as a result.

Tom Steinburg and Ed Mayo's 'Power of Information' report touches on government commissioning policy in relation to 'existing tools':

http://www.commentonthis.com/powerofinformation/#marker10732

They recommend avoiding replication and looking at what people are already doing out there... which is how I understand the innovationexchange was geared to slot into existing communities and tools.

The responses to the report indicate that the message got across to some extent:

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2007/070625_info_res.aspx
http://www.commentonthis.com/powerresponse/#marker11318

"The Government agrees that needless duplication is unsatisfactory. Government should neither smother nor crowd out innovators. The strength of new technologies is that, for example, a substantial self-help discussion forum with many tens of thousands of members can be run by one person as a volunteer. Or, indeed, ownership may be far from clear, being in the hands of many volunteers and stakeholders."

But also points to the possible issues that won't be resolved in a hurry:

http://www.commentonthis.com/powerresponse/#marker11319

"However, in a strict procurement, accountability and legal framework, it is challenging for government to rely wholly upon such organisations for delivering advice, especially on sensitive or controversial issues. Such challenges are often encountered when working in the offline world with the third sector and can be resolved with an appropriate risk management approach."

The context is quite different - the report is about public sector information rather than innovation, but I think the issue about procurement procedures is relevant.

It's really difficult to reconcile 'due diligence' in commissioning with emergent innovation processes, which precludes many funding routes for them.

Perhaps that will change with time. "Strict procurement, accountability and legal frameworks" might give way to structures that are more amenable to emergent innovation practices: distributed decision-making, transparency, and open source.

I'll try revisit this idea again in a year or so - see what's happened. ;)

Thanks Ed ... you are right, social reporter doesn't do it all. I can report on the membership org-civil society stuff, but then also need to do it. Ah well, many roles, many blogs.

Dear Staff,We are seriously seeking a fundraising volunteer in the U.S.A to assist our children's centre in Kenya.Please assist!Kindest regards,Edith NyamburaPrincipal Mother Teresa Children's CentreP.O Box 3305NakuruKenyaEmail:m_teresa70@yahoo.com

I think that you have been talking about social reporting for some time, so should give that a whirl and see how it goes - although i wouldnt' say that all your interests could be represented at social reporter, (e.g. membership physics - which is more civil society) - so can you run both?

If you are going to try to get a public debate going about what it means to be British you need the public to be alerted to the process and engaged with it. It looks as if this process has not been started - certainly I hadn't heard of this proposal until now and a quick search of the BBC's website reveals that nothing has been written about this at all - the only evidence of it is an interview transcript which mentions the project in passing but without any of the context needed to make sense of it .

If that doesn't happen then all we will hear for most of the consultation is the voices of policy wonks like ourselves and various interested parties.

Mind you the Citizen Summit itself if it is done as a deliberately representative physical gathering might more closely approximate a genuine national discussion. Certainly something to watch...

Alice - I'm with you about many voices. And just because bosses start blogging, it doesn't mean they adopt a conversational tone. Stephen Bubb now has a further post up with some sideswipes at others in the sector ... but no acknowledgement for we minor beings who wished him well in comments. Just another platform?

I absoultely agree with the idea of getting bosses to blog- and moreover to get active citizens or higher profile members of a given community eg. head teachers to blog as a way of setting a precedent for the rest of us to join in.
The Lords blog: http://tinyurl.com/2rxjmp

and Permanent secretary blog: http://www.idealgovernment.com/index.php/blog/comments/1566/

are good examples from the public sector.

But its not just about these individuals as official leaders, its the informality of community leaders such as the rather fabulously active 80yr old Peter (aka geriatric1927) who has been doing great videoblogs on YouTube for quite a while now and encouraging other older folk to get involved in life online. http://tinyurl.com/2nrob8

It's all very well having the NHS London piece

If you actually go there

http://www.acapitalidea.org/

The river of ideas is dominated by viagra and forex currency dealing ?? !!

Not sure what additional light this will shine on health policy

I don't think many people are monitoring the site

A think a "big conversation" is needed, at least to share an understanding of where everybody wants to get to... but even the destination cannot be set in stone in this age of constant turbulence.

I think it was Jeremiah Owyang who wrote something like "tools come and go, but the one thing that remains constant is strategy."

But I'm also reminded of Kathy Sierra posing the question: incremental vs revolutionary improvements?

It's as if we're all driving a car down a country lane at night; we can see only as far as our headlights, but we can make the whole trip that way. We need to demonstrate to our passenger that together we can get by the inevitable stones in the road...

Roadmap anyone?

Argh! There's too much going on at the moment! What with this, the BBC civic stuff, RSA... it's all going on!

Hi Mike - I agree about the need to mix online and off. I share your uncertainly about the influence of online on those resistant to change. Just writing a post about different approaches to e-democracy. More soon. Meanwhile you might be interested in discussions over at The Membership Project

Social Media won't change the world - people will.

Certainly new technology is very helpful for those people that do want to make changes - Whether these technologies can be used to motivate and support those that previously wouldn't make a change, to do so, I'm not so sure.

I do think things work best online where they're also working 'offline' ie. based on something 'real' - social media is a 'tool' it all depends on how the tool is used (and getting people to use it!).

The idea of institutions being replaced is very interesting though (and quite attractive in some cases!)

Thanks for the link David. Just top let you know, I have set up a page on 'content to be different' so there is a nice simple URL for anyone to link to:

www.theinternationale.org/back-the-bloggin-bosses/

Don't know if this would help, but my CEO's a Fellow.

Josien, what I think is emerging is Worldview 1.5 – a sort of halfway house between the machine and system worldviews. Over the years I've met many people who think they've embraced Worldview 2, but who continue to use "root cause analysis" or something similar, who want to solve problems rather than create the new, who are unable to truly collaborate because they disapprove of their co-collaborators' values, beliefs, moral code etc., and who cling to the metaphor that the future is a place and change is a journey. They tend to be blissfully unaware that this is a metaphor and that it's hampering their ability to create the new. And this is the real killer: they think they've embraced systems thinking, but it's nothing more than network thinking: the kneebone's connected to the thighbone etc. I'm curious to know what will precipitate a shift from Worldview 1.5 to 2.0. I suspect that few will make the shift during my lifetime (I'm 58). As for a shift from Worldview 2 to 3, that's another story altogether!

Thanks Alan - I certainly got blank faces at a recent conference for PR and comms people in housing associations - and then when understanding dawned a lot of "we can't let them do that". So the potential has two barriers to jump ... until people start doing it for themselves. We'll still need institutions - the issue for me is whether the old ones can adapt, as we are exploring over here.

Yes, absolutely over hyped by the "Everybody's doin' it" crowd, but social organisations are also slow to see the potential that is there.

One risk is that the OTT lot get a "Flat Earth News" effect going, as I don't see anyone right now saying "hang on, lets keep this in perspective, there's quite a bit of counter-evidence too".

civicjournalismuk sounds good - spread the word

As I have mentioned, elsehwhere, David, I am right behind you (not in a scary way!).

This is too big and important a discussion to have behind closed doors.

As for a tag, civicjournalismuk seems to be empty on technorati and del.icio.us - maybe use that?

Thanks Paul and Paul ... I'm a former hack too, now a social reporter I guess and remember two things used to agitate journalists: hidden places ... nd people talking about the failings of journalists in public. Some tension then:-) What's the tag then? How do we out it?

Some journalists would agree, David. But the Matthew Taylors and Andrew Keens of this world wouldn't: hence the walled garden.

I would honestly suspect that their motivations lie less in 'the public’s declining trust' than in shoring up old media and having a good ole moan about those damnable bloggers, who have amongst those responsible for that declining trust as they parse media agendas (I just did this on the Obama speech and the BBC's US reporters - lots of people doing this sort of thing is threatening).

Good on you for having a gentle go at them.

One would hope journalists would agree but speaking as a former hack, those walled gardens are very useful for hiding behind. Makes you feel like an embattled war correspondent, which I guess they are.

Anyway I agree that the RSA would be foolish to try and contain this discussion even if they could. Far better to encourage as wide a conversation as possible. Why not launch a specific tag and then encourage debate anywhere and everywhere and let the tag do the formatting and collecting and connecting. Let the tags form the new walled garden.

If the RSA doesn't do it, someone else will... or already has

Thanks Nathaniel - looks like a great project with direct benefits. Is there mashup potential with Project Bija?

Hi David,

I saw that you were writing about the Netsquared Mashup challenge and I wanted to share a little bit about our Mashup Challenge entry: Assetmap.org/uganda. You can read more at http://www.assetmap.org/uganda

The question behind the project is this: with peace on the horizon after 20 years of war in northern Uganda, and the big NGOs soon heading off to other war zones, who is going to support community organizations and northern Ugandan civil society as it transitions to peace time?

By mapping information about ongoing community-led philanthropic partnerships in northern Uganda, assetmap.org/uganda helps American citizens aggregate their resources to support post-conflict transformation.

We hope to facilitate collaboration among American donors and volunteers by providing a digital tool that:

•maps project locations so you know who's working where
•tags information about the specific issues projects and organizations seek to address
•links tagged and mapped projects to the facebook and LinkedIn profiles of participating donors or volunteers

If you're interested in supporting us, please visit and vote for us here:
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/assetmap-org-uganda

Thanks!

Nathaniel Whittemore
Director, Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement
www.mycge.org
globalengagement at gmail

Hi Paul, Nick, Andrew ... quite a blogger convention cheering on bloggerbubb. I wonder if blogging CEO of the RSA Matthew Taylor would host a little get together for us all. RSA is supporting The Membership Project which aims to promote this sort of thing.

Funnily enough I'm talking at the NCVO tomorrow about blogging on the basis of my blogging experience in my day job.

I keep on getting positive feedback from my audience and having seen me do it for three years now my Chief Executive took the plunge recently and seems to enjoy the qualities we all like about blogging.

So it looks like there's a small band of CEO's out in the third sector blogging away. Perhaps Stephen could be persuaded to invite them for a meet-up!

Likewise....can only be a good thing...all about the continuity now, as we well know....

Yeh. Just popped over to leave a bit of encouragement. It's going to be a lot easier for us evangelists whipping up the troops for this stuff if their bosses are already on board. Simon at Brook (http://brookcentres.blogspot.com/) has got it and it shows. Talking to the rest of his organisation, there's not the sense that they have to check upstairs of cyncism: "ah it'll never happen". I always say organisations cannot and should not Blog. That's people's job and bosses' too.