The German professor Dietrich Dörner describes it accurately in his book the “The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations.” Problems are seen logic to tackle, but are, in contrary, far more complex than firstly thought.

Faced with problems that exceed our grasp, we pile small error upon small error to arrive at spectacularly wrong conclusions. We too often ignore the big picture and seek refuge in what we know how to do - fiddling while Rome burns. (Book review)

In a simulation for a development project, Dörner proves how this can lead to failure, and in many cases, efforts have no sustainable impact. One key challenge is to solely rely on global knowledge and state of the art expertise and disregard the local knowledge.

Local knowledge is a collection of facts and relates to the entire system of concepts, beliefs and perceptions that people hold about the world around them. This includes the way people observe and measure their surroundings, how they solve problems and validate new information. It includes the processes whereby knowledge is generated, stored, applied and transmitted to others. (Source: FAO)

Indigenous knowledge are traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities. The growing importance of indigenous knowledge and technologies can be seen, for example, for biodiversity conservation.

Therefore, efforts towards knowledge sharing are a key to make projects work. Kingo Mchombu, author of the Sharing Knowledge Handbook has an interesting point in that regard:

credit: angela7dreams

In most cases, the information needs of the urban and rural poor are seldom taken into account when they are supplied with information to solve their problem of poverty. The assumption being that they know very little and that is why they are poor, thus the knowledge system of the urban and rural poor is totally ignored when supplying them with external information.

It is puzzling to see how often a well intended transfer of knowledge is seen as the right way. As Joseph Stiglitz suggested, most learning initiatives in the development sector have tried to scan globally and apply locally. Also Ben Ramalingam argues: “This ‘pipeline’ approach to learning seriously underestimates the complexity of aid work.”

To my understanding, there is a growing need to link the local with the global in development work. Sharing and mixing knowledge is as important as relying on an interdisciplinary approach. To have people and organizations going this path and linking theses spaces are becoming even more important in the future. My hope is that the social web provides a framework for this broad knowledge sharing and collaboration, but this I will describe in my next post.

Paul Currions points it out well in his post that the UNHCR map “is useful because it starts to give people an idea of one of the key issues for refugee management and the complexity of running a refugee camp. The first thing I notice is that every time I click on a link for more information, it tells me how much it costs to buy school or farm equipment, and gives me a link to UNHCR fundraising so I can cough up right there. I think we should be doing better. Much, much better.”

I agree with Paul Currion and wonder why these services do not offer the following:

• Integrating other available sources of information to offer a broader perspectives on the given context. There are many other potentially valuable resources, which could enrich the visualization.
• There should be ways to contribute information, for example, by refugees themselves or beneficiaries of World Bank projects. Couldn’t mashups used to get feedback and to monitor projects and their impact?
• Gapminder.org illustrates nicely what further ways are possible to simplify complex data.

Interestingly, there are a lot of grassroot initiatives offered, which are often developed and maintained by a few people and sometimes even one person who accomplishes much more.

1. Tunesia Prison Map
   Sami Ben Gharbia put up together, already a while ago, the frightening Tunesia prison map, in which he has been using google maps. It shows where political dissidents have been locked up by the Tunisian government.
2. Theyworkforyou
   They work for you was developed by Rob McKinnon, whom I had the change to meet back in London. This inspiring project has a sister in the UK “that aims to make it easy for people to track the activity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament.” Basically, this site aggregates information already available in a form that makes it more transparent to follow the engagement of parliamentarians and topics. I am really impressed about his work and looking forward to see more of his ideas realized in the future.
3. UNdemocracy
   This is again a website which aggregates available information and offers it in a transparent way. It focuses on an easy access to the transcripts of the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations. The same people also did the Public Whip, a page tracking the voting record and attendance of parliamentarians in the UK.
4. Ushahidi
   This website was quickly realized through the recent Kenya crisis and maps the reports of the post-election crisis with all its different incidents such as riots, deaths, property loss, government forces etc. Kenyians can report such cases through their mobile phones by sms. This truly is a bottom up mashup.
5. Mapping the election conditions in Zimbabwe
   
   This is a similar initiative, which documents all types of manipulation during the latest Zimbabweans election. The map is a valauble resource and Sokwanele has been doing an impressive work for human rights throughout the the last years. Ethan Zuckerman wrote an in depth post about this project.
6. Healthcarethatworks
   Another Google map mashup, which shows the New York City wide status for hospitals and its disproportionate impact that recent hospital closures have on low-income communities.

Some more mashups in the enviroment field are summarised on Global Voices by Juliana Rotich. Lastly, Netsquared has on this year’s conference a mashup event, where promising new initiatives are presented.

Always online

There is a slow shift when the web loses its physical limitation. Although the web is all around the world, in most of the cases you have to go somewhere to be connected. The mobile phone, because it is easier to connect to the web, changes that — you are always online. The web is a constant follower that might be frightening to some. But a “blackberry for activism” lets activists get involved instantly. On a peer to peer basis, people are connected = protected. A recent case underlines the potential: “Twitter Saves Man From Egyptian Justice.” Jan Chipchase wrote in a recent New York Times article, “the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity.”

Interacting from everywhere

Some years ago I read Howard Rheingold’s “Smart Mobs” and I could not really see these mobile peer-to-peer networks happening on a massive scale, but, nowadays, a connection to the web allows people to be part of social networks. There are many worldwide experiences for sms campaigns for political change. The New York Times recently wrote, “50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the cellphone for social networking.” This is particularly important in developing countries, where mobile phones are the communication tool. The real benefit is not in the northern hemisphere, where through the recent years most mobile business models have been failing. It is in Africa or Asia where the mobile phone is the main communication technology. If this is connected through the web, it then allows interaction, coordination and organization on a peer to peer basis. The cvberactivism in the aftermath of political violence in Kenya is one example and another is the mobile social blogging network vipera.com.

Broadcast from everywhere

In re-publica.de I watched a fascinating session on video citizen journalism. Brian Conley presented a project in which people from Iraq broadcast from Baghdad over the web (Alive in Baghdad), and there is no media team around. This presentation reminded me of a recent new development: live video broadcasting. Two new services are very interesting: Qik and Mogulus. Yes, more new tools, but these ones represent a shift — with Qik you can broadcast alive from your mobile phone wherever you are. I first got introduced to it when David Wilcox interviewed me through his mobile phone at the Social Innovation Camp. And the other tool, Mogulus.com, can be set up easily in your own television station to be online, letting you broadcast on daily basis from it. Eduardo Avila writes a fascinating story from Ecuador: My Mobile Voice and Citizen Journalism.

Citizen video broadcasting has two interesting facets: First, videos often have a stronger impact compared to texts. Second, citizen journalists, such as mobile reporters in Africa, go themselves to demonstrations and make interviews or film directly from areas where no media outlet goes.

On Friday we went to a get-together and later to a pub. During this few hours, I got to know somebody from the open source movement in Brazil, a PHD student about social media, some great folks who try to change the British local government from inside out, and a lot of people with great ideas - many more than the six chosen for the Social Innovation Camp. But also, the Young foundation premises were a great location and the organization was excellent. Before I tell more about the different projects and the weekend, I would like to wrap up the highlights:

• It works! The concept of bringing people together to collaborate for social innovation through the web worked excellent. Almost a hundred people showed up, who were all eager to collaborate and offered their expertise.
• Inside out. It is amazing to see the spirit of the participative alive and be able to meet all these open people. In contrast to Barcamps, it goes a step further and people work on a project and by that, you share experiences and learn from each other. Both represent a great passion for exchange and a desire for creativity.
• Scale it up! I can so imagine how this approach could be scaled up. Bringing people with ideas together an d forming something together exhilarating and contagious. The web has become a playground to rethink or we-think (Charles Leadbeater) the potential of social change and overcome traditional barriers. Therefore I am eager to participate at the Social Camp in Berlin next June.
• Unlimited ideas. It was really amazing, in brainstorm sessions, to listen and discuss so many ideas that the attendees have. There are many impressive ways to empower citizens, to engage in social or injustice or help to change a community. To me, it is clear that we are just at the start of this development. Business start-ups were the beginning and social innovation start-ups are the future.
• Richness of data. During the last year, I was often overwhelmed, suspicious or frustrated about all this available information and data in the net. But now, there is a great potential to get much more out of all these data. Make it relevant, use it for transparency or advocacy. This kind of information power will change a lot: Being it “rate my prison” or the potential of aggregation.
• It is the mobile phone. Once again the mobile will make a big difference because of one simple reason. Whereas in the past I went to the computer to do something with the web, in the future my life and the web are closely connected. I can engage when I want or consult a friend or contribute to the wiki bar-code or I switch off.

There is a backnetwork page to see all people involved and all six chosen projects are described at the Social Innovation Camp website:

• Wibi.it
  Formerly bar-code Wikipedia. A site for storing user-generated information – such as carbon footprint, manufacturing conditions and reviews - against a product, identified by its barcode number. It enables buyers to check product information through their mobile phone right in the supermarket, for example, whether it really is fair trade.
• Enabled by Design
  A resource for anyone looking to make adjustments to their lives, be it as a result of disability, injury or impairment. Enabled by Design won £2,000 as our judges’ favourite idea at Show and Tell.
  
• On The Up
  Formerly Personal Development Reports. An online system that supports young people to identify their personal skills and qualities. That is the project I worked with. It is about personal development to help young people get a perspective, become peer learners and fulfil their dreams. In the first hour, I did not know whether it would work but suddenly a great visionary idea came together. I am curious to see how it will go on.
• Rate Your Prison
  Formerly Prison Visits. A tool to support the families of prisoners coping with the experience of being apart from a loved one. Rate Your Prison won £1,000 as the runner-up project at Show and Tell. There is little information about how prisoners feel in prison. A voice for the voiceless
• CVLifeLine
  Formerly Rate my CV. A site for helping jobseekers using Web 2.0 tools. Young people can help each other to improve their CVs.
• Stuffshare
  Freecycle meets Street Car: a stuff club.

Most projects even had prototype websites finished in those two days, which it was amazing to see they were done with the help of coders and designers. And the winners were “enabled by design” and “rate my prison!” For more information and all other blog posts check the list by Aleksi Aaltonen.

Well, a week after attending both, the Social Innovation Camp (sicamp08) and re-publica, I finally post my reflections on these events. It was great to visit these two events, listen to numerous interesting presentations at re-publica, and grasp the contagious spirit of social innovation in London. There were interesting differences and similarities on discussions in these two events, but I will just extend on some thoughts I had:

• There are great projects regarding Edemocracy in both countries, which allow citizens to participate or influence politics and to give more transparency. There is even a German-British cooperation called e-participation.net. On a workshop, full of interesting presentations about this topic, Christoph Dowe said that it is still not easy to get citizens to engage on those platforms. Some websites do not get any attention and others, such as ich-gehe-nicht-hin.de ( “I do not go there”) for nonvoters or abgeordnetenwatch.de (ask the member of Parliament), are successful. Mysociety.org has great projects in this regards, based in the U.K. For example, Fix my Street.
• On both events free and open source software (FOSS) played an important role. It is clear that FOSS invites for collaboration and allows to build platforms for social innovation, which proprietary software cannot do because it is for commercial purposes. Regarding knowledge sharing, I really like the presentation of deepmehta software, in which knowledge is represented in a semantic network and is handled collaboratively.
• The whole topic around social change, innovation or entrepreneurs plays are far more a significant role in the U.K. Whereas on the re-publica, social entrepreneurs, e.g. startups for social change, played no role although there were promising projects such as betterplace.org and helpedia.org (will blog soon about them). The social innovation camp was fully devoted to this topic.
• Whereas at re-publica privacy laws and data protection were high on the agenda, on the social innovation camp they were of no importance. In contrary, I was surprised how openly people took user generated content for granted. The all over camera surveillance (CCT) in London is rather not amusing.

Local vs. global news

Another interesting development, is the emphasis on the local, as a sicamp08-fellow pointed it out to me during the first evening. The internet is truly global and it is great to connect with people worldwide, but there is this paradox that in the UK or in Germany one often does not even know its home-neighbours. So, there are projects coming up to have social network applications, so that people from an area can find similar interests and engage in community development.

At the re-publica.de, I listened to a presentation by Sean Bonner about “Blogging about local issues, on a global scale.” It dealt with the high relevance of local news in the global web and how metblogs.com tries to cover that. Sean Bonner said:

Before the web local issues did not get as much attention - national and international stuff was more important. Money was made through those kind of news. The Internet changed the distributing and exchange of news specifically on the local level. Blogs play a decisive role. Blog networks are key in local news exchanging.

Back in 2003, Sean Bonner and friends found that there was a lack of local information. Opinions, thoughts and recommendations about local issues. They started working on a local blogging network in L.A, and then opened up a platform called metblogs.com for a overarching network of local bloggers. Nowadays, over 50 cities are participating.

One interesting example is the coup back in 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand. First news appeared 6 hours before CNN on metblogs.com by people equipped with mobile phones. Similarly happened in Pakistan during the web blackout last year. There was also an interesting attempt by AOL to copy their concept, but it did not work out without a community. Sean Bonner said the newspapers rather copy the tools, but forget about the social dimension behind local community blogging.

I did not know about this network before, but it looks interesting. However, it seems often quite individualistic and with random topics. Global Voices Online follows closer developments in countries and translates them in other languages.

An in depth Social Innovation Camp blog post is in process.

So far, I am amazed about the collaboration potential of wikis, but also disappointed about their usability. Until this discussion, I was kind of convinced that the user shall be in the focus. Participation should be as easy as possible, so no technical barrier hinders users to add or edit content. But Martin and Andreas surprised me at one point by saying that WYSIWYG are not necessarily an advantage. I shared my surprise on twitter, which brought up these reactions, and hence, I decided to write a blog post about it:

So far, I argued for WYSIWYG editors for these reasons:

• There are different little barriers one has to bear before one can start editing a wiki page. Most people are used to Word, and WYSIWYG editors are familiar in this regard. Cryptic code might be confusing and needs some experience.
• WYSIWYG give guidance and integrate nicely other media such as images or table.
• A wiki is not seldom confusing because of its missing hierarchy. WYSIWYG editors ease to set up new pages or link to existing ones.
• Many wikis still lack user orientation and are rather confusing (e.g. no hierarchical menu or insufficient linking). The less a user has to think or adapt, the better. Content should matter.

So here it is a list of arguments against WYSIWYG editors. Martin Koser also wrote another excellent post about it.

• Too much function distracts from content. It is the same problem with Word. Hours spent on elaborating sophisticated tables instead on concentrating on the content.
• Code editors limit users and let them focus on structured content — what is useful and which structure (e.g. header and bullet point lists) is best for the reader? If used properly, those texts have more clarity.
• WYSIWYG invite to paste all content completely from word, which is not necessarily conducive for collaboration.
• Basically, it is a short code list to learn, and then you can write faster and it is more simply to edit codes.
• No doubt the code created by WYSIWYG is often a mess and does not separate content and formatting.

Does that convince you?
The discussion, once again, showed me how complex the implementation of social software can be, or how easy if you just let the people use it. The question of WYSIWYG editor might be trivial, but in contrary, the lack of those editors are a key argument to decline social software, as Martin pointed out.

Gapminder is a great example for that. And another one is the tactical technology collective with this booklet: Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design.

It is promising to see that UN organizations such as UNEP follows the same steps and offers the Atlas of Our Changing Environment on Google Maps:

Through illustrations, satellite images, ground photographs and powered by Google Maps, this interactive media depicts and describes humanity’s past and present impact on the environment.

Today also UNHCR announced a mashup with Google Earth Outreach program, “which punveiled a powerful new online mapping programme that provides an up-close and multifaceted view of some of the world’s major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.”

Here is the actual site, but you need Google Earth to load it.

Patrick Philippe Meier writes about it: “the next step for an iRevolution is to enable refugees to access this information on a regular basis. This need not require high-technology. The information could be broadcast by radio, for example.” I believe it will become even more effective when refugees themselves can add information and update those visualized contexts from their perspective.

One other excellent source was recently launched, UNdata, with over 55 million records and comprehensive statistics.

NGO as learning organizations

Mariëtte Heres wrote an interesting article called “Aid is a knowledge industry.” She emphasizes on the importance of knowledge sharing and learning within and between NGOs and states that, “although NGOs are taking more interest in knowledge management, they have so far failed to recognize that they are part of a knowledge industry, of which the delivery of goods and services is only a part.”

If an NGO wants to become a learning organization, it is important that – in addition to acquiring substantive knowledge – it learns more about learning. ‘You need a learning attitude in this sector. And if you want to learn, you have to experiment. Even if the experiment is a failure, you still learn from it. Knowledge is the result of reflection’.

The ICCO alliance is in this regard quite progressive. It established publicly available “Learning and Sharing Spaces.” This ambitious attempt for a learning organization results in better understanding and innovation through transparency.

Open source everything

Mark Surman marks in his post, “Open, philanthropy and a theory of change,” a step further and argues for radical transparency, which “means opening up not only your yearly books, but also openly sharing your planning, learning and relationships as you go along.” In an inspiring visualization he describes his vision for an open knowledge society filled with possibilities. All organizational boundaries diminish — a key is to listen, learn and evolve with the community. The result is open philanthropy with a constant flow of ideas.

Thanks to Rachel Happe, I have now a little, albeit comprehensive, list of metrics to measure the impact of social media. The following list is an excellent start for the evaluation of the impact or return of investment of social media:

Activity Metrics

• Page-views
• Unique visitors
• Members
• Posts (ideas/threads)
• Number of groups (networks/forums)
• Comments & Track-backs
• Tags/Ratings/Rankings
• Time spent on site
• Contributors
• Active contributors
• Word count
• Referrals
• Completed profiles
• Connections (between members)
• Ratios: Member to contributor; Posts to comments; Completed profiles to posts
• Periods: By day, week, month, year
• Frequency: of visits, posts, comments

Survey Metrics

• Satisfaction
• Affinity
• Quality and speed of issue resolution
• Referral likelihood
• Relevance of content, connections

I imagine that with all or some of this statistics, it is (1) much clearer to see whether users engage thoroughly in social media, (2) get a picture of the specific culture of communication and sharing, (3) whether this interaction has a benefit and is an alternative to conventional communication, and (4) it brings something new in the sense of synergies and innovation. Thus a next step would be to compare old ways of communication with the gains of new ones.

If you analyze this activities within the organizational contexts, you can easily extend them to the rest of the web. Pete Shelton makes some helpful suggestions of how to Measure the impact on the web or here is one for blogging.

• Page views/visitors
• Downloads
• Citations
• Mentions in the media/blogs
• RSS feeds
• Search engine rankings

The other day I got an email from Richard, telling me I was the social bookmarker of the month. Many thanks! To me, social bookmarking is one of the key tools of the participative web, which gives me valuable information. So, if you also share bookmarks and are interested in topics related to development, you should join this community. Send an email to: info(dot)focuss(at)gmail(dot)com.

And to conclude, for more information about the web2fordev conference, Arne Wunder and Paul Matthews gave a presentation about the evolutionary history of focuss.info.

I remember when Tariq Khokar Jackson from Aptivate said that the Web2fordev conference website can, with its 300 kB, take up to a minute to load from a dial up connection. In an interview, he underlines the importance of simplicity in webdesign and its obstacle for connectivity. To get an impression of what that means, you can use the Aptivate Low Bandwidth Simulator. I checked it through CNN.com and it took 4 minutes to load the website with a 20kb-normal-African-university-connection. I, myself, had an interesting experience when I was in South Africa last year. I was faced with volume packages for internet. Suddenly, a YouTube video was not a choice, and Skype calls were much shorter. I had to think it twice whether to go on overloaded fancy news sites or not.

So, what are some of the potentials and obstacles? I tried to list the points I could think of and hope you will have some other points to add.

Potentials

• Websites become more lightweight, the separation of layout and content gives more ways to access.
• Device independent publishing such as RSS feed.
• Beta mode of websites focuses on its users and offers multiple channels to distribute and exchange information from Email to SMS.
• Mashups allow to mix and filter content before it is delivered to its users. That means standard searches, feeds or information channels can be individually subscribed to get relevant content.
• The fusion of mobile phones and the web allow new ways of access and interaction. Market information systems are one way, but tools, such as Twitter, open a two-way conversation.
• There is a boost in languages, especially through open source software. Excellent publishing software is freely available in dozens of different languages such as Arabic, Swahili, etc. Web2.0 has a boost in forming own distinct language spaces.
• The personal computer plays less of a role with new innovations such as software on a USB flash sticks or web based software.

Kevin Painting makes a good point in this post:

In a delicious irony, the Web2.0 paradigm to move the “desktop” from the PC to the Internet has created (for some) a host of seemingly old fashioned problems of connectivity which, of course, are the daily lot of many in developing countries. To wit, in a Web2.0 world, when all your programs and files are on the Internet, what do you do when you can’t connect to the Internet? There is much activity now to develop applications that work seamlessly in an on-line/off-line world that will be of enormous utility to developing countries where lack of access to the Internet is not an occasional nuisance but a daily reality. The big players have been very active here: Google with its Gears application, Adobe with Air, Microsoft with Silverlight. We can only look to developments here with heightened anticipation.

By the way, this paragraph is part of a blog post series about a “One Laptop Per Farmer” by Hans Jörg Neun, who is director of CTA.

Obstacles

• The major concern certainly is the bandwidth issue which, nowadays, websites need. Websites not only have many photos but also widgets and many third party applications.
• Podcasts and video streaming is in many places extremely pricy. For example, in South Africa only volume tariffs are offered.
• To interact fully in the particapative web, one needs to be frequently online. Most of it becomes even instant communication and leaves out those who have only sporadic access.
• Most resources are invested in new fancy and high bandwidth applications, and less into innovative lightweight applications for small connectivity.
• Often, important rules of usability are left aside and websites are confusing and overloaded.

I am sure there are more points and hope you can add some. But, I think there are further challenges, which I wrote in a post bak in January.

Whether the organization as we know it survives or not, it is by studying the changing patterns of communication that we will discover the new shape of civil society. Our methods of analysis - and possibly our methods of regulation, funding, and participation - will shift from those that reflect managerial thinking to those that reflect ecosystem thinking.

Here are five important innovations that we need to make this transition successfully: (1) We need ways of making network structures tangible to those who want to support civil society. (2) We need to develop and propagate the language of networks, with adjustments suitable to our many communities of practice. (3) We need models of collaboration and communication that help organizations make the most out of their new permeability. (4) We need financial structures that facilitate network centric funding and (5) legal structures that facilitate network centric employment.

This kicked off a debate among these bloggers: Joitske Hulsebosch, Andy Roberts, David Wilcox and Josien Kapma. Their interesting posts discuss whether the statement is valid and emphasize the role that communication plays within it, and to which extend a transformation of civil society and its organizations has already happened.

I think that organizations eventually have to change because of: (a) complexity, which can only be managed in open networks; and (b) pressure from members, stakeholders or competitors, who move on to other organizations, coalitions or simply form there own campaign. But, in my opinion, the organization will change slowly. Still, NGOs have been participating in networks or coalitions for decades although there internal structure has been often preserved conventional. Here lies the dilemma that most organizations are still pretty much self-contained and naturally driven by self-interest for funding, reputation, etc. — and this is a key obstacle for cooperation. However, civil society was one of the first ones to start working on the potential of the web and in networks if you look at campaigns against the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) or the Zapatistas in Mexico in the Nineties. A key challenge, for traditional NGOs in the next years, will be to compete with extra organizational activism or open networks for social change.

Allison Fine coined the phrase extra organizational activism in her book “Momentum igniting social change in the Connected Age.” She argues about how we should reconsider cooperation and external communication in an organizational context. I wrote about her book in this blog post: open source approach for organizations. One step in the same direction is The Membership project, where David Wilcox is also part of and which “explores changes that the social web and other factors may bring to groups and organisations … and to our ideas of belonging in an increasingly networked society.”

Replying to Michael Gilbert’s five value points, I think they tend to be very formalistic and I can see the web is changing faster and forming more loose networks with their own rules. So the question is whether traditional NGOs can match these loose and open networks with their sometimes quite conventional organization. And I wonder whether it is possible and even conducive to search and create”models of collaboration” or “legal structures” to harness the potential of these new networks.

There’s a notion that “m-Development” will be more attuned to the needs and context of users than was the initial round of ICT4D projects (what we might call “ICT4D 1.0″). But I wonder if, in fact, some of the some mistakes aren’t being repeated. I’ve come across a couple of project descriptions in recent days - using mobiles in the health sector in South Africa; using them in the agricultural sector in West Africa - where the projects have been designed and driven by technical staff, and which turned out to be technically well beyond both the technological and human infrastructural readiness of their intended user settings. This techno-centric approach was a characteristic of the first ICT4D projects, and it would be disappointing if the m-development field equally started to get ahead of itself; forgetting that the main uses in poor communities are voice and, to some degree, SMS on basic handsets.

This triggered an interesting discussion among some of the people who were in the list. For example, Steve Song, who has an interesting new blog, wrote:

I think you will always get technocentrics chasing new ideas and applications of technology without a clue about development, just as you will get development people chasing new ideas without a clue about technology.

I think that the difference with m-development is that you stand a) a closer chance of developing something scalable, affordable in developing countries and b) you potentially open the doors to innovation simply by putting tools in play, witness beeping, SMSing, air-time transfers, m-Pesa. Jan Chipchase of Nokia Research points out that Nokia has no idea what the future of mobiles looks like. They are trying to design to enable innovation.

And Patricia Mechael added to the discussion:

Often times, people start with the technology and look for ways to apply it to address development objectives rather than looking at development objectives and then identifying tools (high and low tech) to help leverage their achievement. In relation to mobile phones one area that has not been well studied or documented is the role of basic two-way voice communication within a broad range of development activities.

Anthony Makumbi emphasized the importance of livelihood:

My view is the only way this can be avoided is to build technology on existing livelihood development programs. Technology comes in to enhance particular areas of the livelihood programs. Here you are introducing technology to the end user with a direct meaning unlike projects designed from the blue with different sentiments and imaginations, with no direct fit with the normal livelihoods of communities. With that said, with the mobile phone there is great potential in getting a direct community fit and with the current penetration rates of the Mobile phone in Africa, there is a mass opportunity in the adoption rate within rural communities.

In my opinion, ICT4D had many challenges in the past, but nowadays there are more opportunities to do differently. Two decisive developments are mobile phones and web2.0. One allows finally massive access, sharing information and communication technologies, and the other brings the potentials for collaboration and a multitude of creative applications to its users.

Ken Banks from kiwanja.net has an fascinating post about “Social mobile and the long tail“, where he argues the great potential of low cost solutions with mobile phones, and made this excellent graphic. He writes, “Solutions are tantalisingly close, but without the tools and a practical helping hand, most of these NGOs remain passive observers.”
Two interesting events around this event will be held this year. One is a conference organized by W3 called “Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development” and another is the MobileActive08: Unlocking the Potential of Mobiles for Social Impact.

Bill Ives wrote a nice post about power point karaoke — a great way to relive us from boring presentations and to laugh about the mass phenomena of non stopping slides and too many buzz words. He writes, “This trend combines two of the most boring things around, PowerPoint and Karaoke so maybe it would be funny.” It was actually invented here in Germany by an interesting creative “think tank” called “Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur” (Central Intelligence Agency), who also runs the blog riesenmaschine.de. By the way, this guys also wrote an interesting book called “We call it work - the new digital bohemian,” which deals with new working models and the escape of 9-5 jobs. (Unfortunately, I think it only is available in German).

How to do Power Point karaoke?

I am pretty bored with Power Point presentations, but still quite surprised about the fact that slide records can be always beaten, and the amount of buzzwords that can be used. So, I must say that this is lots of fun!!! We did it in our team some while ago and enjoyed it. It definitely trains you in holding presentations in outer circumstances and improvising. It also feels good to talk random nonsense once in a while because, at the end, that is sometimes needed in case somebody gives you a presentation about all sorts of stuff. I am sure there are many ways to experiment with it, but this is how we did it:

Preparation

• Go to Google advanced search and click the drop down menu “file type” and select Power Point (.ppt)
• Now, search with random key words the web for PPT and check the presentations. Good results are, for example, strategic communication (surely full of buzzwords), ornithology, fire extinguisher or simply beer.
• If you find some presentations, which shall not take longer than half an hour, you can rate them by the level of difficulty. We had three levels. When you look at each presentation, it becomes obvious that an ornithology presentation is not as easy as one about kitchen equipment — but who knows? Name the PPT files with the topic and sort them in three different folders.

Power Point Karaoke

• Everybody has only 5 minutes to present. The presenter already knows the topic and the number of slides to be shown at the minute he/she has to begin.
• The presenter can choose between the different topics within one category (level of difficulty). Just show the folder over a projector with the different files and topics.
• The listeners give grades after each presentation is given and judge the performances. But please be fair, it is not that easy, I can tell from my own experience.
• Once all have presented, and everybody stood naked in front talking about the weirdest things and maybe had to go through 80 slides in five minutes, the presenter with the worst grade passes out.
• Then, a next round starts with less players and one level harder.
• In the end there should be a winner, who improvised and impressed the best and came up with the most bizarre stories, which luckily, of course, have nothing do with the real content of the slides.

So it does not have to be a mass event or contest. It can be a great team exercise with PPT overdoses. Have fun!

Democratic

While on holidays, I had the chance to read Semler’s book. The cover looks a bit curious, but the substance is quite inspiring. Thanks to Ignatia for recommending me this book. The main message of the book is that it is possible to have an open democratic non-hierarchical and successful company. In his book, already a few years old, Ricardo Semler tells his story about how he has transformed a company for the past thirty years until today, together with his colleagues through an open management model. He proved, to my surprise, that an ongoing cycle of questioning things makes progress and change possible. The book has a lot of fascinating insights next to some repetitions. Here is the excerpt, and here are two great quotes:

And the increasingly popular concept of work/life balance is not all that we seek. Balance also ensues when people are given room to explore so they can find out where their talents and interests lie and merge their personal aspirations with the goals of the company. Once employees feel challenged, invigorated, and productive, their efforts will naturally translate into profit and growth for the organization.

Giving up control also means relinquishing exclusive rights to information. Privileged information is a dangerous source of power in any organization. Information that one person has that others lack can be terribly important, and can give them the upper hand. To annihilate information hoarding and illegitimate power, information must be shared. The argument that competitors might latch onto sensitive information if it is widely known is not convincing enough to stop the free flow of information.

Flat
The wikinomics playbook — collaboratively written by the readers of the wikinomics book — will be printed soon. The online version, freely available, offers many different topics. I, particularly, liked very much chapter 2: “The Wikified Organization.” In the centre there is of course a wiki, which is less a technology than a chance for all to contribute and create something new. “At its heart, the wikified organisation is about communications—wide-open, no-holds-barred, inclusive communications.”

Wikis are not about bottom-up management, they are about round table solving of solutions where titles are null and void, where intellects win and where ideas are valued, not ruthlessly critiqued…Wikis change the paradigm… the goal is a refined idea…. not an idea beaten into consensus!”

With a wikified approach, a team can transform a “good idea” into a “cause,” and a cause has a life of its own. Often a cause is unstoppable—if the idea that spawned it is “good” enough. Later, a cause, if it has enough energy, capital and direction (read as steerage and guidance), can become a movement. And a movement can change the world.

Passionate
The authors of Playbook argue that this wikified approach leads to an ongoing open space of ideas and exchange between passionate driven contributors. Maybe that is why the company 37signals has recently announced a change to a four-day week and that they are funding there employees passions.

Three-day weekends mean people come back extra refreshed on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people come back happier on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people actually work harder and more efficiently during the four-day work week.

It could turn out to be just like the story from Semler. In one part, he describes when the company was introducing hammocks for lunch-break-naps and how this led to a creativity boost.