The report is a great read. You can view it online, or  download the PDF or ebook.

When I saw this part I jumped up and did a happydance!

Practitioners need physical spaces to meet, build relationships, and generate ideas. These don’t have to be new spaces. Libraries can become the new hubs for engagement and innovation. They can house knowledge as well as the tools to address community needs. Librarians can curate information to help people solve problems and make their communities better.

Yes yes yes!

Emphasis mine. Here’s the whole chapter on Building the Technology for Engagement Field.

I’ve been working on a brief about Libraries as Public Innovation Spaces. So this was really awesome and confirming.

A side note: Mozilla and Knight have been collaborating on the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews initative. We got a preview of some of the results of their work at MozFest. People, this is totally frickin’ awesome stuff. And Dan Sinker is a badass dude. Take a deep look. Learn. Share. Try it for yourself.

Of course it’s not so simple, as in “That $5 million you gave us, well half of it we spent on things that didn’t quite work out. But here’s what we learned, and here’s what we’ll do next time you give us money…” Now imagine the donor going back to their stakeholders with that message. Ouch. Especially in these days of increased openness and transparency.

What to do? Celebrate failure. Get people used to it. Embed it into our culture. Fail fast and fail forward. (Design thinking gives us some helpful frameworks here.) I’ve been a fan the Fail Faire idea for a long time now. And Facilitating Change supported Fail Faire DC 2011.

This year we’ll present at Fail Faire DC. (Uh, I’ll present.) Hope you can join us. There is still room on the wait list. Word Bank, November 16, 2012. RSVP here.

What’s Fail Faire DC all about? From their website:

Projects succeed, projects fail. The successes are reported on, the failures are filed away. Or, in the case of most international development and ICT4D projects, pushed under the proverbial rug. Well, its time to bring out the failures, with a sense of humor, and with an honest look at ourselves. Hence was born: Fail Faire.

Fail Faire DC features projects using ICT in international development that have, to put it simply, been a #FAIL. Busted, kaputt. Tongue firmly in cheek, we take a close look at what didn’t work and why the projects failed amidst the ICT4D hype we all are subjected to (and sometimes contributors to).

We believe that failure is no reason to be ashamed. Failure shows leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs. There is also great value in examining our mistakes as we go beyond the easy and the simple.

Only if we understand what DOESN’T WORK in this field and stop pushing our failures under the rug, can we collectively learn and get better, more effective, and have greater impact as we go forward. So while we encourage irreverence and humor, we will be improving our profession too.

Here’s the abstract.

This research aimed to understand the impact of the ICT Hubs to entrepreneurs. An ICT hub is a space where technologists congregate to bounce ideas around, network, work, program and design to bring their ideas to fruition. The first ICT Hub of the 15 hubs to be profiled within this study series is iHub, Nairobi’s innovation Hub for the Technology Community. The study found that 100% of the entrepreneurs appreciate the iHub space as it has been a conducive and innovative coworking space that drives continuous networking through the events, community meetups that leads to collaboration and partnerships, sharing skills and knowledge through teamwork among others. This is likely because most of these talented entrepreneurs having graduated with no formal job opportunities, have had their talents and skills nurtured and housed under these hubs. Overall, the entrepreneurs believe that the iHub can further sustain this coworking spirit by building more capacity through communal projects and active virtual member interaction among others.

The beautifully designed report also details their methodology, as well as the indicators that they developed to measure impact.

There will be more research on African iHubs, in collaboration with ActivSpaces in Cameroon. In September 2012, they released a report on ActivSpace’s model, which will be followed by an entrepreneurs report. Looks like a heavy focus on youth employability/entrepreneurship.

Finally — I want to share this infographic that I found on the Afrilabs website. It’s a draft created by iHub Research to explain their research framework. There are six categories. One is in the middle: community. I couldn’t agree more — that’s certainly been my experience.

IREX & Beyond Access

IREX is listed as an OGP Supplier; they refer (less directly than I’d like) to the Beyond Access: Libraries Powering Development initiative:

IREX is currently working on a global initiative to partner with governments on reforming and developing public libraries as government information access points for their communities.

Denmark

Open Government Partnership National Action Plan 2012, Under the heading “Self-service and reporting solutions”:

Peer-to-peer learning programmes to help citizens use digital self-service In collaboration with public libraries, community groups and volunteers, e.g. under the auspices of the Senior Citizens Association, information and peer-to-peer learning programmes will be implemented to help citizens and businesses obtain basic computer skills and learn to use digital self-service. Supporting the govenrment’s goal of “full digitisation” for citizens in 2015 and for businesses in 2013, new target groups can be reached, and information and guidance can be provided in various ways which match those groups’ needs through a broad collaborative effort.”

Ukraine

Ukraine Country Commitment: Implementation of e-government technologies and promotion of electronic democracy

Under “Technology & Innovation” — commitment description:

For the needs of open governance it is essential to introduce cutting-edge information and communication technologies, especially to maintain the dialogue between state institutions and social society by exploiting of interactive cooperation methods and potential of social networks, as well as to modernize the organization of government, increase government transparency and improve access to information. Permanent exchange of information between the Government, civil society institutions and the public is fundamental to formulating social and economic development priorities, accumulating social capital and increasing the country’s innovative capacity. The Government will introduce relevant interactive platforms as new mechanisms of joint partnership activities.

One of many activities is:

Arrangement and implementation of the “Public Libraries as Bridges to E-Government” initiative with a view to enable free access to official information, interaction between citizens and government via libraries, train librarians to use e-government resources and technologies, implement an awareness-raising campaign and popularize e-government.

There’s a too-long intro about innovation spaces. Sorry. Trying to set the context. The good stuff (i.e., Silvia) starts at around 11:47. It’s messy, it’s part of working open, and we’re thrilled to share it with you.

So…

Speaking about at-risk youth, Silvia invites us to re-think both the location and reach of public libraries. Her example — Cuetamelo Todo in Ibarra, Ecuador — shows how librarians can work with the community to re-claim public spaces, such as parks (at night!), extending “safe space” beyond the library’s walls for a more inclusive social development.

…the libraries have been located in neighborhoods that are usually not thought of as having a library — or even deserving a library. It would invite a rethink of spaces where libraries can exist that are necessarily always strictly a vehicle for the delivery of a technology — like a book — but rather a space for social innovation where you reach out to bring kids into the social fold in a positive manner.

The project is run by Desarrollo Social & Habitat, an Ecuadorian NGO, with financial support from Belgium and in partnership with the local community leaders, Universidad Técnica del Norte, the local municipal government, and Fe Y Alegría. Learn more »

Innovation spaces are environments that foster community, creativity, and production. They provide a physical place to explore, experiment, and engage with new people, ideas, and technologies — promoting economic growth, social cohesion, and democratic development.

Hub, hackerspace, makerspace, fab lab, incubator, telecentre, coworking, library — all afford hands-on opportunities to experience participatory culture, acquire new literacies, and develop local networks and solutions. And all necessary to thrive in the 21^st century.

For comparison, this was the first try. If you’re a glutton for punishment you can watch me fight the chaos beast (#workingopen).

Now on to listing characteristics…

Thanks to Hugh McGuire for his support (read: access to amazing brain, and generously taking time away from PressBooks to give feedback), to Stresslimit for providing today’s innovation space, and to Beyond Access for sponsoring this work!

PUBLISHED August 14, 2012
UPDATED August 31, 2012
UPDATED October 3o, 2012

In it, I start by defining a range of innovation spaces: telecentre, hackerspace, coworking, fablab. (I’m working open: see and comment on messy work process.)

The definition of a telecentre wasn’t working for me. It missed some crucial aspects:

• Access to support: people (formal and informal infomediaries) and services, such as training.
• The fact that “telecentre” is a high-level, catch-all term to describe a type of space, stand-alone or embedded into an existing organization. So folks this means that you can be/run a telecentre even if you hate the word or don’t think of yourself that way.
• Highlighting the diversity of business / organizational models.
• Highlighting the focus on advancing well-being and development at all levels (individual, community). I decided good to leave this broad and not start enumerating different kinds of development (social, cultural, economic), or specific domains, such as health, democracy and governance, the environment, or education.

You can go look up the old definition on Wikipedia. Here’s my update:

“Telecentre” is catch-all term for a public place where people can access digital technologies and the Internet, information, and support and services that enable them to create, learn, play, and work — while building skills and connecting with others. Telecentres go by many different names (community multimedia/knowledge/ technology centre, public Internet access point, etc.), operate under a range of business models, and are sometimes embedded into existing institutions, including libraries, community organizations, nonprofits, and businesses. The common denominator is a commitment to advance well-being and development — of individuals and communities — which often includes efforts to support groups facing social and economic challenges, including youth, the elderly, people with disabilities, immigrants, and displaced workers.

I expect it will change a bit. The last part is still clunky. But you get the idea.

From FreeBassel.org:

On March 15, 2012, Bassel Khartabil was detained in a wave of arrests in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. Since then, his family has received no official explanation for his detention or information regarding his whereabouts. However, his family has recently learned from previous detainees at the security branch of Kafer Sousa, Damascus, that Bassel is being held at this location.

Bassel Khartabil, a Palestinian-Syrian, 31, is a respected computer engineer specializing in open source software development, the type of contributions the Internet is built upon. He launched his career ten years ago in Syria, working as a technical director for a number of local companies on cultural projects like restoring Palmyra and Forward Syria Magazine.

Since then, Bassel has become known worldwide for his strong commitment to the open web, teaching others about technology, and contributing his experience freely to help the world. Bassel is the project leader for an open source web software called Aiki Framework. He is well known in online technical communities as a dedicated volunteer to major Internet projects like Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org), Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.org), Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org), Fabricatorz (www.fabricatorz.com), and Sharism (www.sharism.org).

Since his arrest, Bassel’s valuable volunteer work, both in Syria and around the world, has been stopped. His absence has been painful for the communities that depend on him. In addition, his family, and his fiancée whom he was due to marry this past April, have had their lives put on hold.

Bassel Khartabil has been unjustly detained for nearly four months without trial or any legal charges being brought against him.

We, the signees of the #FREEBASSEL campaign, demand immediate information regarding his detention, health, and psychological state.

We urge the Syrian Government to release the community member, husband-to-be, son to a mother and father, and celebrated International software engineer Bassel Khartabil, immediately.

Sign the letter »

Sign

To hack is to engage with something and figure out how to make it work for you. It involves pushing boundaries, breaking a few rules, trying out something new, remixing, modifying, creating.

Underlying this is a sense of agency: of people learning to see themselves as creators rather than consumers. As citizens. Hackers, makers, and people with DIY attitudes don’t shrug their shoulders and walk away from problems — they say “Let me see that!” and keep at it until they find a solution. Sometimes that might involve duct tape.

Most civic technology and open data initiatives have emerged from this ethos and from environments (read: innovation spaces) that promote interaction and experimentation. They’ve emerged from collaborations between developers, designers, and activists — people with a vision for the future, passionate about ideas, communities, and better government.

Credits: Beth Kolko got me thinking about this when I listened to her talks at Harvard’s Berkman Center (here and here). Ethan Zuckerman has a wonderful summary of Beth’s January 2012 talk on his blog. I also see Andrew Schrock has also written about this recently (here and here).

Case in point: The Global Impact Study. Our findings our emerging, slowly. Now we want to get them into the hands of people who make decisions about public access: Do we invest? Divest? How do we design our program? What rules should we put into place?

I expect that policymakers, donors, and program designers have a lot to consider when making decisions. But we’d like to make sure that the evidence we’ve generated is part of the mix. Question is: Which formats work best?

What do we know? IDRC’s Policy Community Survey

In 2011, IDRC’s Think Tank Initiative released the Policy Community Survey. Focusing on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, the study gathered the views of senior-level policy actors to ask about their needs for research, perceptions of research quality, and impressions of think tank performance. Here’s who they talked to:

The report includes the survey instrument. (THANK YOU. I really love it when researchers do that! Framing matters and I want to see how you did it.) Questions included:

• Overall, how would you rate the quality of the current national policy making process in [YOUR COUNTRY]?
• In your current direct or indirect involvement with national policy making processes, what types of information do you require?
• What format(s) of information exchange is most useful to support your involvement in national policy?

For that last question, respondents could pick up to three items from this list:

• Databases / statistical data banks
• Print publications/reports
• Online/electronic publications/reports
• Newsletters/bulletins
• In-person events / Face-to face-meetings
• Online forums / discussion boards
• Consulting/advice from individual experts
• Policy briefs
• Media (TV/radio/newspapers)
• Other, please specify: _________________________

I wonder if anyone mentioned social media, blogs, infographics, or data visualizations for “other”…? Sometimes I really hate surveys.

It’s interesting to look at how the US IMPACT Study decided to package their findings. Of course the project scope and context is really really different: They’re dealing with one country, and their own country (read: better understanding of culture and policy processes). Still, in addition to publishing reports, note that they created a toolbox for advocates. They packaged research findings into formats directed at decision makers.

Back to the Policy Community Survey findings. Here are the results of the above question in a handy figure:

And here is part of what Frank Tulus, our friend/colleague/client over at IDRC, highlighted for us to follow-up on or consider in our communication and dissemination strategy. Emphasis is mine.

In terms of the types of information exchange found most useful, interestingly most still find print publication and reports to be most useful, followed by databases and statistical databanks. The study also indicated that the policy stakeholders felt there is a lack of access to reliable and trusted primary data sources.

What is actually surprising here is that the least effective way identified for exchanging information with policy stakeholders is actually the use of policy briefs. The study didn’t go into much detail on the reasons, but I’m wondering whether this is also due to the nature and quality of policy briefs typically received by these stakeholders.

Policy & donor people: Does this jibe with your preferences? If not, what would your list look like?

Research communicators: What do you think of this? Would this change your strategy?

Me: Really? People are still not over the expensive, glossy report? Do they have any idea how much that costs to produce? And no visualizations or social media? Wow. I recently wrote a blog that has led to some really great discussions with decision makers (see the comments section). And briefs?! Those are like my ultimate weapon. I’ve found that I get the most response from briefs, so this has me puzzled. Maybe my template is just really awesome :)

Help me out here, folks.

Global Impact Study early findings

I asked Melody Clark to pull together early Global Impact Study findings. Here they are. OPEN RESEARCH CAVEAT: These could change, and there’s not much of a narrative tying them together. 

Based on three surveys of 1,250 venues, 5,000 users, and 2,500 non-users, we’re learning that:

Public access venues make a significant contribution to digital inclusion and development

• Public access is the only option for access for many users — only 28% of users surveyed have access at home
• Over 40% have used public access for employment and income purposes
• Of those who use public access to look for jobs, 91% applied for a job. (Great follow through!)
• 95% of users surveyed said that using public access for communications & leisure has improved their overall digital skills
• Even episodic use, such as searching for health information, is impressive. Around 30% of users search for health information, and considering that in many countries health information may not be widely available online, this is a large number.
• Almost 80% of people report positive impacts on education from using public access venues.

Public access complements private access — people still use public access even when they have a computer at home

• For those who do have access at home, they still frequent public access venues for a variety of reasons, including better equipment, faster connections, and being around other people

We also did seven in-depth qualitative studies, using focus groups and one-on-one interviews with users and operators. The findings from these can guide program design — rules, infomediary characteristics, mobile phones. Examples:

• Even for those with the “internet in their pocket” (on their mobiles) still use public access. Mobiles are co-present, rather than competitive or a substitute for public access.
• Playing games on computers often leads to more and better “instrumental” and employable digital skills. Big deal since games are often not allowed. (My son Liam is going to love this. It’s been his argument all along.)
• Along with ICT skills, users value empathetic skills of venue staff, such as being understanding, flexible, and personable.

Checking in with our stakeholders

So lately I’ve been checking in with public access decision makers to see what works for them. Some of the questions I’ve been asking:

Information: trusted sources and habits?

• How do you get your information?
• Do you actively search? Where?
• Who do you talk to?
• What events or meetings do you attend?
• Who or what do you follow (newsletters, social media, other…)?

Knowledge gaps / interests?

We’re thinking to do a series of topical one-pagers. Topics might include:

• Space
• Infomediaries
• Sustainability
• The effect of gender on impact
• Free versus fee

Does this appeal to you? What other topics would you add to this list?

What are your favorite formats?

Print publications

• Big report
• Briefs

Do you prefer to be sent a publication, download it, or view it as a website?
Do you like it when you can review visuals or tables seperate from the text?

Digital

• Videos
• Infographics
• Datasets

Events

• Webinars
• Conferences (which ones do you attend?)
• Small gatherings

What am I missing here? Who has done some next-level knowledge mobilization lately? Stuff you’ve actually used?

So here’s what Silvia sent. Someone should translate it into English and turn it into a video. And a podcast.

— ¡Pizzerías Google, buenas noches, señor!

— ¿Pizzerías qué?

— Pizzerias Google, señor. ¿Cuál es su pedido?

— Pero… ¿este no era el teléfono de la Pizzeria “La Muzza Inspiradora”?

— Lo era, sí señor, pero Google compró la cadena de pizzerías y ahora el servicio es más completo.

— Bueno, ¿Puede tomar mi pedido, por favor?

— Cómo no señor Gómez. ¿desea lo de siempre?

— ¿Lo de siempre? ¿Usted me conoce, sabe mi nombre?

— Claro es por el identificador de llamadas. De acuerdo con su número de teléfono, sabemos que las últimas 53 veces que llamó para hacer un pedido solicitó pizza a los cuatro quesos y calabresa.

— Caramba, no me había dado cuenta! Quiero eso mismo…

— Señor, ¿puedo hacerle una sugerencia?

— Por supuesto. ¿Tiene pizzas nuevas en el menú?

— No, señor… pero me gustaría sugerirle la de ricotta descremada y la de rúcula.

— ¿Ricotta? ¿Rúcula? ¡Noooooo! Odio estas cosas.

— Pero, señor, es bueno para su salud. Además, su colesterol no anda bien…

— ¿Queeeeeeé?

— Tenemos la información del laboratorio donde usted se hace sus exámenes. Cruzamos el número de teléfono con su nombre y vimos los resultados de sus pruebas de colesterol.

— No quiero pizza de queso con pasto. Para eso tomo mi remedio para el colesterol y como lo que quiero…

— Señor, lo siento, pero creo que usted no ha tomado su medicina últimamente.

— ¿Cómo lo sabe? ¿Ustedes están vigilándome todo el tiempo?

— Tenemos una base de datos con las farmacias de la ciudad y Trampaciti. La última vez que compró su remedio para el colesterol fue hace 3 meses y la caja tiene 30 comprimidos.

— ¡La gran puta! Es cierto. ¿Cómo es que ustedes saben eso?

— Por su tarjeta de crédito…

— ¿Cóooooomo?

— Usted siempre compra sus remedios en la farmacia “El Brebaje”, que da descuentos si paga con tarjeta de crédito del banco “STANDARD GARC”. Según nuestra base de datos, Ud no registra gastos con la tarjeta en esa farmacia hace tres meses, pero sí la usa en otros comercios, lo que indica que no la ha extraviado.

— Ajá! Y no puede ser que yo pague en efectivo en la farmacia? A ver qué me decís…

— Usted le paga $900 mensuales en efectivo a su empleada doméstica y el resto de sus gastos los hace con tarjeta de débito o de crédito.

— ¿Cómo sabés lo que gana mi empleada?

— Por los descuentos jubilatorios, señor…

— ¡VÁYANSE A LA MIERDA, CHE…!

— Señor, lo siento, pero todo está en mi pantalla. Tengo el deber de ayudarlo. Creo que usted debe reprogramar la consulta a la que faltó con su médico y llevarle los resultados de los exámenes que se hizo el mes pasado para que le ajuste la medicación.

— MIRÁ FLACO. ESTOY BASTANTE PODRIDO, DE INTERNET, DE LAS COMPUTADORAS, DEL SIGLO XXI, DE LA FALTA DE PRIVACIDAD, DE LAS BASES DE DATOS, DE USTEDES Y ES MAS.. HASTA DE ESTE PAÍS !!…

— Pero, señor…

— ¡BASTA! ME VOY A IR, BIEN LEJOS DE ACÁ, AL CARAJO SI ES NECESARIO…, PERO ESO SI ,DONDE NO HAYA INTERNET, NI COMPUTADORAS, NI TELÉFONOS CELULARES, NI GENTE QUE ME VIGILE TODO EL TIEMPO!!!

— Entiendo…

— VOY A USAR MI TARJETA DE CRÉDITO DEL COMAFIABANK POR ULTIMA VEZ Y ESTA VEZ VA A SER POR UN BOLETO DE AVIÓN, PARA IRME A LA MIERDA!

— Bueno señor Gómez , no se ponga así…

— EN CUANTO A USTED , PUEDE CANCELAR MI PIZZA.

— Perfectamente. Se cancela. Una cosa más, señor…

— ¿Y AHORA QUÉ CARAJO QUERÉS?!!!

— Sr., le sugiero , si va a viajar , que lo haga dentro del Mercosur.

— COMO???, Y A VOS QUE CARAJO TE IMPORTA DONDE ME VOY?

— Es que su pasaporte está vencido hace 3 meses!…

Five seems to be real popular. The guys who wrote Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics lay out a five-level framework to assess the impact of new media. They caution that when it comes to democratization and social change, new media can have both positive and negative effects. (That reminds me of what I refer to as Kentaro Toyama’s mantra: technology magnifies human potential and intent. Good and bad, my friends.)

What follows are my notes — copying and summarizing work by Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, John Kelly, and Ethan Zuckerman. I encourage you to read their report.

Five pathways to manifest, five pathways to measure

I really tried to make that sound like Lord of the Rings (#fail).

Anyway, these five levels are pathways by which change can be manifest and measured. We can ask whether or not new media is transforming:

1. Individuals — Changing how citizens think or act?
2. Intergroup relations — Fostering/undermining connections? Propaganda, memes & political communications surrounding elections?
3. Collective action — Facilitating collective action? Changing perceptions? Opportunities? Network structures?
4. Government policies — How is government learning about and using new media? What are they doing with it?
5. External attention — Increasing international attention? Consequences?

Aday and his crew point out that these five levels may be mutually reinforcing (changes in individual attitudes align with changes in the possibilities for collective action and the nature of external attention) and nonlinear (for example, change at the individual level may go in a different direction than the dynamics of external attention).

Now on to each level…

Individual transformation

Individuals who participate in or exposed to new media may…

• Develop new political competencies (participate more readily or effectively in real-world politics, process information differently)
• Change political attitudes, orientations, or identities
• Intensify political attitudes, orientations, or identities (i.e., radicalization)
• Produce a more active or passive approach to political action (i.e., reducing or increasing likelihood to engage in off-line political activity)

Competencies example: Women may more readily engage in a mediated public sphere, providing an experience with public political engagement that in the past would have been denied.

Citizens can become more passive, by (1) leading them to confuse online rhetoric with substantial political action, or  (2) diverting attention away from productive activities.

Methods: Measure individual transformation with instruments that assess individual attitudes, expectations, or beliefs — experiments, survey research, focus groups, structured interviews.

Intergroup relations

New media may reshape discussions and debates within and across groups, changing relationships and attitudes. Is new media:

• Fostering or undermining connections among like-minded people or groups, and between different groups?
• Playing a distinctive role in spreading propaganda or hateful images?
• Helping reinforce in-group identity in pre-conflict and conflict situations?
• Furthering cross-community communication in post-conflict situations?

Methods: Link analysis to measure contact within and across political or societal boundaries. Survey research to explore whether consumers of new media tend to consume material produced by people in their in-groups, people in their out-groups, or third parties. Experimental research to measure causal impact of exposure to different kinds of media. 

Collective action

New media may affect the potential for individuals and groups to organize, protest, or take other forms of collective action. Has new media:

• Reduced transaction costs for contentious political action?
• Created flat vs. hierarchical networks of collective action?
• More effectively created & disseminated focal points (iconic images)
• Changed political opportunity structures? (attract international attention, expose divisions within elite, enable challengers to engage elites in new ways)
• Changed perceptions about others’ opinions and beliefs — so that others feel safer coming forward in support of a previously taboo position once they see how many online peers share their views

Method: This level of analysis would most likely require careful case study research in order to assess the changes produced by the various proposed mechanisms. 

Government policies

This was “regime policies” in the report. I prefer government. I also switched up the wording a bit. (And it’s my blog and this is my cheat sheet so I get to change it.)

Can/do governments:

• Learn about how to deal with new media from other countries? (And is the learning curve getting easier?)
• Actively use new media to react to others’ use of new media, or both?
• Use new media just as effectively as citizens?
• Divert attention from domestic challenges by using new media to whip up patriotism and xenophobia?

New media may help activists — but they may also help repressive regimes. Some governments have been caught off guard by new media activism, but others have responded by co-opting, shutting down, or overwhelming activists.

Governments may learn from the experience of other countries and increasingly act preemptively against particular new media forms when conflict might be brewing (for example, China blocked Twitter during a tense period shortly after the Iranian “Twitter revolution”).

External attention

New media may garner attention from outside actors, mobilizing political sympathy or hostility and creating new opportunities to generate power internally. Questions:

• What attracts external attention to one country (say Sudan) and not another (Congo)?
• How does information bias (say, perceptions generated by liberal, educated “bridgebloggers”) distort external attention?
• Does external attention lead to “cheap talk” among external supporters (like green Twitter profiles) or more costly actions (money, protest)?
• Can international attention push protesters to take risks in the mistaken belief that they will get substantial support from abroad?
• When, if ever, can external attention on its own have internal political consequences?
• Do new media create linkages with diasporas, and can these linkages lead to radicalization?
• Do new media affect the ability of states to engage in counterinsurgency strategies?

The Iranian Twitterers, for instance, framed the confrontations around images and actions that attracted Western attention. But their success in doing so likely depended on the rebroadcast of images and footage in traditional (mostly English-language) media.

The millions of Twitterers who colored their profiles green in support of the Iranian protesters could not prevent the Iranian regime from attacking its opposition. As one “tweet” cruelly put it: “Note to would-be revolutionaries: you can remove the green tint from your pictures now; it didn’t work.”

There are limits to internet solidarity: The Save Darfur movement mobilized attention and sympathy, but failed to save Darfur.

Methods: How to assess?

• Measure linkage patterns and content
• Track memes across media outlets

There has been progress in developing techniques to collect and analyze vast amounts of data from the Internet. We can capture the flow of information and communications in real time, while also reaching back far enough to establish baseline conditions from which significant deviations stand out. And we can identify and trace a sufficiently representative selection of new media. Remember it’s important to work in multiple languages — not only English.

So what’s changed? Show me the progress!

• Widespread adoption of syndication formats, including RSS and Atom — Syndication allows a software program to “subscribe” to a URL and be alerted when new content is posted to that URL. Aggregators designed for research purposes can sub- scribe to thousands of feeds, retrieving every story posted to a weblog or newspaper Web site, a process that is far more efficient and accurate than previous spidering-based approaches to data collection.
• Automated content analysis — Tools becoming more widespread, powerful, and affordable. Reuters’ OpenCalais provides a free web service that allows researchers to classify fifty thousand documents per day.

Link analysis

• Analyzing link patterns between Web-based media that habitually inter-link surfaces networks
• Networks are important motivators of social phenomena and political behaviors (example: terrorist recruitment often draws on preexisting networks of friends and acquaintances)

New media network maps reveal:

• Who is talking to whom
• Key nodes or hubs that link many other media sources
• Patterns of affinity or antagonism

By combining network analysis and content analysis, researchers can reveal the central identity of different media sources and of the networks in which they exist.

SIDE NOTE: For years I lurked on SOCNET, a social networks discussion forum. Very cool shit. You can search their archives. I like Valdis Krebs in particular, especially when he blogs about how SNA experts can work with a social justice organizations to kick some serious butt (related: How to Research a Slumlord).

Content analysis

• Measure content that is published or discussed in new media
• Measure how content spreads across networks

Example: Berkman Center’s Media Cloud project — open-source software that monitors an array of digital media, processes texts, identifies and displays patterns, and allows for more detailed analysis:

• Subscribes to tens of thousands of RSS or Atom feeds, collects newly published stories shortly after publication, and indexes content for analysis and retrieval
• Tracks the appearance of a word or phrase across media sources and across time
• Tracks words that commonly appear in conjunction with the search term
• Compares patterns of appearance and conjunction across sources
• Retrieve the text or Web page of any story
• Simple graphic visualization of results

Meme tracking

Term coined by Richard Dawkins. Jure Leskovec, Lars Backstrom, and Jon Kleinberg (memetracker.org) have shown that prominent political memes typically spread from mainstream media to blogs, rather than vice versa, with characteristic patterns of spikes in the intensity of discussion.

• Meme — an ideas or “discrete cultural forms” that spread from individual to individual, perhaps changing as they do, in processes that are loosely analogous to genetic evolution
• Researchers track how individual phrases are transmitted across electronic networks, as well as how they change and mutate

Use memes to:

• Begin to establish causality — by identifying the flow of specific concepts, terms, or issues through new media
• Identify the origin and flow of ideas — Do ideas move from the blogosphere to the mainstream media or vice versa? In which sector of political society did an idea originate?
• Understand how memes change as they move across communities (within limits)

Linking the framework to good strategy

In my recent rant about making good strategy I went on about listening and SMART objectives. I’d like to try going through this framework in the early on in that process, and especially when figuring out how to gage success. Also I wonder if it would help to map out a better theory of change, and make better decisions about audiences, messages, and tactics. Certainly understanding constraints and have a sense of what’s possible helps.

On that note, I leave you with Civil Resistance 2.0: A New Database of Methods and a reminder: Don’t choose your tactics until the end. But, when you do, get really wild and consider the entire range. Then execute them well. That’s where the rubber hits the road. Become a Project Manager Ninja!

I stumbled upon this because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how civil society and digital activism. I’ve been focusing mostly on social media mostly, but also looking at other tools: TASCHApress, Ushahidi, HomicideWatch.org, Alaveteli (What Do They Know), My Society (Fix My Street, They Work For You), Apathy is Boring’s Citizen Factory, and Citizen Budget. Also data journalism and visualizations.

I spent two weeks in Georgia last month, conducting in-depth interviews with nine NGOs — looking at how they use ICT tools in advocacy and communication campaigns — and conducting two training sessions.

Here are some other good chunks of content, which will lead you to a bunch of other goodies if you’re willing to go down the rabbit hole:

Central Asia: An Exception to the “Cute Cats” Theory of Internet Revolution
By anthroplogist Sarah Kendzior. Read especially the comments. Very good discussion. Sarah and Katy Pearce also wrote a full-on journal article related to this: Networked Authoritarianism and Social Media in Azerbaijan.

Onnik Krikorian’s interview with Micael Bogar
A must-listen. I wonder how this conversation would be different if it took place today. (Onnik is the Caucasus Editor of Global Voices and he conducted a more in-depth social media training in Tbilisi the month before I did.)

Forums and flame wars in Georgia
By Bijan Kafi, written for OpenDemocracy.net. It’s dated (April 2010, OK not that old… but the online landscape in Georgia appears to have shifted a lot since then), but take the time to read the whole thing. Here’s one of my favorite parts, because it highlights the importance of creating a campaign that combines online and offline components:

When Zurab Tchiaberashvili was mayor of Tbilisi, this was precisely what he did. His public appearances were robustly criticized, so he engaged his critics online. The technological limits quickly became apparent, though, because many of them doubted the identity of the “virtual mayor”. Tchiaberashvili did what any Georgian would do: he invited his critics for dinner. So, one evening that year a convoy of cars filled with both the mayor‘s staff and about 40 of his critics went to a Tbilisi restaurant to feast together over wine and traditional Georgian food.

Digital Activism 101
From Mary Joyce, over at the Meta-Activism Project. Their Resources section is especially good.

So I’m going to make a bold claim, digital technology can only do five things for activists.  These five uses can be carried out through a variety of tools (blogs, micro-blogs, SMS, websites, social networks, video, the list goes on) and in a variety of contexts (revolutionary struggle under a repressive regime, international social justice campaign, local advocacy, democratic political elections…), but there are still only five of them.

Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics
By Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, John Kelly, and Ethan Zuckerman. Provides a framework to understand the impact of new media. They create five analytic buckets: individual transformation, intergroup relations, collective action, regime policies, and external attention. New media have the potential to change how citizens think or act, mitigate or exacerbate group conflict, facilitate collective action, spur a backlash among regimes, and garner international attention toward a given country.

It’s that simple.

Documenting decisions puts them out into the open. This will:

• Clarify rationale (we’re spending time/money on X because it will result in Y)
• Provoke questions and feedback
• Allow others to decide if they want to join you, and how they’ll contribute
• Provide a framework to tell your story — backed up with specific examples and numbers
• Help you make better decisions
• Create an organizational record

Go NOW and jot down your decisions. Your real decisions. Look at how you spend your day, how you spend your money, and who you’ve hired and what you have them doing. THIS IS YOUR STRATEGY.

Then you can come back and read the rest of this post.

…

…

….

You came back? Have your list? Great.

Now you can make it better.

There are a ton of planning guides out there. But “strategy” is still overwhelming for many small organizations. My intent here is to de-mystify and get you started. It’s good to iterate. Begin with the decisions you’ve already made, and start the process of making better ones.

This should work for any kind of change campaign: communication, outreach, internal launch, advocacy, social media, content, etc. The list goes on. (If you look at Outcome Mapping, a monitoring and evaluation methodology, you’ll recognize some of the same principles.)

Oh. And I keep editing this in order to make it simpler and better. So check back a lot :)

Making decisions about how to allocate limited resources

We all have constraints: limited time, not enough people, modest budgets. There’s a lot we could do — more than ever — but we have to make choices. Your strategy documents your resource allocation choices (your “big bets”), and how these choices fit together and move you toward your goal.

If you want to get all metaphorical you can think of a strategy as a story that maps out a journey. It starts with where you are and lays out where you want to go and how you’ll get there. It details the decisions — the path — that you’ll take. Most importantly, it gets everyone on the same page. Others can use it to come along for the ride.

A strategy has two three four five main parts: goals, resources, research, decisions, and project management.

1. Goals: Create a compelling vision

What are you working toward? Your goals describe what success looks like. Have some fun. Create a compelling vision of the future; aim to inspire and engage. (If you’re writing a communication strategy, your goals are for this specific project, not for your entire organization.)

Optionally, you can also include a few other chunks of information:

• Context — Where are you now? What sparked the need to make choices?
• Constraints — Any complications, sensitivities, or pain points?
• Stakeholders — Who can effect you in some way? Who has power/influence? Who’s interested? What do you want from them and what do they want from you? [NOTE: There are a number of stakeholder mapping approaches, some group according to power and interest, others according to type. I'll post more.]

2. Resources: What do you have to work with?

What resources do you have? List budget, people, partners — and anything else you can use for your campaign.

3. Research: Listen, listen, listen

I see people skip this step a lot. Please don’t. It’s the most important part. You’re going to have to make a lot of decisions — selecting target audiences, identifying influencers, framing messages, figuring out which media to use, designing a poster, etc. — and you’ll need good information to guide your choices.

Listen — really, really, really well. Otherwise your decisions will suck.

Maybe people avoid this because they think research is conducting a survey. But research is way more than that. And it’s way more fun:

• Be an “functional anthropologist” — do guerrilla ethnography — get out and observe people in their natural habitat. Capture images and sounds. Use techniques like empathy mapping (another example), personas, and journey mapping to listen, learn, and document.
• Snoop online. Use Alexa or See Beth Kanter’s Link Listening To Social Media Strategy Decisions and Social Media Listening, Monitoring, Measuring, and Management Tools.

4. Decisions: Your big bets

• Targets — People or groups that you must MOVE TO ACTION in order for you to achieve your goal. List them and explain what you need them to do, and your overall approach for getting them to do it. BTW: The general public is not a target audience. Never. And the media is usually a tactic: you use them to reach a your target audience.
• Objectives — Create Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound (SMART) objectives for each target. Often objectives start with words like “increase”, “decrease”, or “maintain”.
• Tactics — List what you’ve decided to do, who will do it, when, and how much it will cost. This should align with your resources. This is the implementation part of your strategy — where you get things done. You can use a Google Docs spreadsheet or project management software, such as Basecamp, to keep your team on track.
• Indicators — Stuff you’ll track or measure to see if you’re on the right track (monitoring), or to show others that you’ve succeeded (evaluation). Your indicators must align with the “measurable” part of your objectives.

TIP — When selecting targets, objectives, or tactics, use a series of “if-then” statements to test your rationale. This is your “Theory of Change”. For example: “If I put out a press release then the media will pick up my story and then ___insert audience___ will read my story and then they will ___insert action___, which will lead to  ___insert result___.” Not the best example, but you get the idea. 

5. Become a Project Management Ninja

Seriously. You’ve decided. Great! Now you’ve got to get it all done: on to managing people (herding cats), time, money, vendors, last-minute requests, and fires.

My quick advice: Get Basecamp. Decide with your team how you’re going to use it — the social/practices side of things. And stick with it. If that’s too big guns you can start with a Google spreadsheet. Whatever you need to stay organized.

Tools & templates make it easier

Tools and templates provide a framework for people to get together, think, and document decisions. I’ll gather some and update this post.

Do you have a favorite strategy template? What does it look like?

For advocacy, I like Spitfire Strategies Smart Chart. (They also make good guides. Check out The Activation Point.)

The first stage of the project will establish computer centers in 300 villages, to later extend to 600 villages.

Managers as infomediaries

Staff will be selected though an open competition. People can apply individually or in pairs (each center will have two operators). Those selected will receive access to training and an internship, free equipment (three computers + peripherals), and a year of technical support.

Staff will act as infomediaries and provide support to community members, with a focus on:

• Education — Basic computer, Internet, search, and programming skills
• Economic development — Using and creating e-commerce sites (such as mymarket.ge and myauto.ge), sharing via social media (YouTube, Facebook)
• Access — Use of ICTs for access to education, government services, and social service agencies/organizations (for example Georgia’s Civil Development Agency is a project partner)

Private sector partnerships & financial sustainability

The initiative is intended to be financially sustainable. There will access fees and center operators can provide complementary services to supplement income. Partnerships with the private sector (banks, insurance companies, parcel delivery companies, etc.) are expected to expand service offerings.

Gambling, gaming, and “entertainment network” will be prohibited.

A call to build on existing efforts & networks

Telecentre-Europe and  Beyond Access: Libraries Powering Development  have a role to play here. They can reach out to the ministry — they’ve got a great Twitter and Facebook presence — and help make this a success. I’m not sure if new centers will be built, or whether they will be housed within existing infrastructure. In the interest of long-term sustainability it would be most awesome to see some good networking, mentoring, and partnerships with libraries and existing public access efforts. We’re all too aware of the pitfalls of big, top-down government projects.

Prior research on public access Georgia

Because I’m an incurable sharer I’m adding here three reports from the Technology & Social Change Group‘s Public Access Landscape Study, which from 2007 to 2009 examined ICT access and use in 25 countries, including Georgia. Likely also the results of TASCHA’s Global Impact Study will also be of interest to the initiative. Especially the in-depth study on non-instrumental uses, as it looks specifically at whether or not allowing gaming in technology centers is a good thing.

• Landscape Study Report, Georgia
• Landscape Summary Georgia (one page)
• Georgia Profile (spreadsheet)

AkiraChix is an association that inspires and develops women in technology through networking, training, and mentoring. They launched  in April 2010 when a group of young female techies got together at the iHub and decided to create a network that increased visibility for women in tech.

In a continent where women form a majority of the population and half of the workforce, it’s deeply uncool that less than 15% of the people working in tech are women. Technology is projected to drive economic growth in Africa, so there more bad-ass girl geeks is good. Really good.

One of their programs, AkiraChix Training, trains young ladies from socio-economically challenged communities. The curriculum focuses on computer literacy, programming, design, and entrepreneurship. In the first batch of graduates, more than half went on to get jobs or consulting gigs with various IT firms.

To top it all off they also have great values:

Community — we put our community of women members first
Competitive — we are competitive in professional and academic fields
Disruptive — we are positively disruptive
Social impact — we care about social impact and doing good
Charismatic — we are charismatic, engaging, successful

Just the kinda folks I want to hang out with, and that y’all should support.

Go Girl Geeks!

Photo by AkiraChix, video by Cesar Harada.

The event is open, and will will be informal and based on small, rotating discussion groups guided by facilitators —  not experts — to encourage participation, collective reflection, sharing ideas and experiences, and lively debate and open dialogue.

The purpose? To stimulating engagement, reclaim the commons, and empower.

More at 7castors7beavers.wordpress.com.

(Personally I think they should have gone with 7honeybadgers, but that’s awkward to translate into French.)

Check out their awesome poster:

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), a term coined by Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander, are courses that

• Take place online
• Are typically free of charge
• Use learning materials can be modified, re-used, and distributed to others
• Reach thousands of learners at once

MIT, Harvard, Georgia Tech, Stanford are all in or getting on the bandwagon.

Not only is online learning beginning to scale massively, but it is also beginning to do so at almost zero marginal cost. The expense of adding an additional student in a campus setting remains relatively stable. In online learning, however, the cost of adding one more user is often so close to zero that it can be ignored. Even the issue that seems to resist low-cost scaling the most—meaningful assessment, certification and recognition of learning — is starting to change. The Stanford artificial intelligence course offered certificates for those who completed the course work. MIT announced it will set up a separate organization, called MITx , to offer certificates for online learners. The Mozilla Foundation , the MacArthur Foundation , Peer 2 Peer University , and others are hard at work on developing a system of portable online “badges” that would help learners to demonstrate and share evidence of what they have learned in informal or formal settings.

Read the full article »
Browse Nancy White’s roundup of the debate around MOOCs »

Mike Best and his team at Georgia Tech have designed a real-time election monitoring tool that aggregates social media content from about 20 different sources, including Twitter, Facebook, Ushahidi, blogs, and SMS messages. As reports begin to filter in, the aggregator uses clustering around certain keywords to create an organic catalogue of “curated incidents.” This way, the monitoring team in the “response room” can inform others about irregularities and problems.

The tool was used in Nigeria in April 2011 and in Liberia in October 2011. Following the election, the data can be analyzed to improve the use of social media and SMS to improve future election experiences. Examples:

• Training civilian groups and voters to tweet election results
• Organizing SMS group accounts for both national and local election officials
• Establishing a central database to collate election results, and having local precincts send results via SMS
• Advising international monitoring organizations to partner with domestic groups that will monitor social media

“Nigeria showed that this technology has legitimate and useful applications for monitoring elections or keeping a real-time pulse on any number of political or community issues,” said Best. “Our ultimate goal is to delve deeper into the particulars of this, examining the information’s accuracy, depth, timeliness and scope, and comparing it along those dimensions to other sources of information.”

In 2012, Best hopes to employ the aggregator in monitoring elections in Kenya, Senegal and the new nation of South Sudan. Learn more »