What's your interest in the Store?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Noel Hatch on August 4, 2010 at 14:07

I guess I'll be the first out of the trenches ;)

I'd be interested in looking at if/how councils could support the development of these social apps and make use of existing social apps and look at where social apps can complement and augment their own services.

Especially around where and how community groups/self organising initiatives can build their own “social apps” that councils could help either support or signpost to citizens or communities who could most benefit from them.

We're developing a space for local people (groups and individual) which aims to make the best use of local talent to help develop solutions to improve local services and enable people to turn ideas into innovations by using new tools in a cheap, quick and easy way. It links into our Open Kent approach and really builds on our Transformed by You workshops (where you can see the ideas developed that we could host in the apps store).

Taking off my council hat and putting my "after work" youth group leader hat on, we've developed various projects that you could call social apps. Where we have needed support is start up funding and support by local councils or bigger charities to highlight the work we're doing to wider groups of young people to get them involved.

So what would also be useful for the BS Store would be approaches where social apps can help build communities from the people that have used them, as this would reduce that need for using intermediaries to connect with our target audiences.

Also useful is where there is a community developing ideas, how that could be focused into a need for developing a social app (which is where a marketplace like Simpl could help).

Permalink Reply by Phil Green on August 4, 2010 at 21:35

I think the stuff I'm mostly interested in might come under 3, but seeing potential involvement via citizens (first, consumers second), civil society groups and communities, with an emphasis on co-production. So encouraging co-creation by citizens, groups and communties, and finding ways to encourage the confident expression of needs and aspirations (or wants - seems to chime with what Marilyn Browne said in earlier discussion "To my mind the first step is to find out what is needed in a particular area,...")

I kinda hope that sustainability can be reasonably well represented in what the Social App Store offers. It feels a bit like I've been attempting to do something a little bit similar for the last 5 years or so with the Sustainable Community Action wiki but without a particular emphasis on tech stuff. An example of a particular need I forsee in this area, for local groups, is something like 'open local carbon accounts'. I've sketched out more on what these might look like elsewhere, but some background here There may be other specific places I can go to, to try and spark some interest in co-production of something like this (I think I could set out why these'd be useful / maybe needed, some options as to how they might work, but don't have the tech ability to create the whole thing myself), but it'd be good if the Social App Store could offer some kind of help to this kind of need, even if only good signposting.

Under 5. I'd be keen to try and influence the design so that, particularly for anything to do with sustainability, creative commons or copyleft type approach encouraged as much as possible - so the good ideas "...like muck, not good except it be spread"

Presumably some of you may have seen Appify ? Has for example Apps for greener planet? Any earth-friendly apps out there? Best app making use of open gov data? What's your favorite app for the sf bay area? , etc. - all BS type stuff? I kinda like the uncluttered design of this and how it looks as if they're letting the design grow organically rather than overdesign it beforehand.

Permalink Reply by Nick Buckley on August 9, 2010 at 11:06

A rough sketch from me. I offer myself up as a potential end user (or hyperlocal-intermediary?) in the context of doing MySquareMile on the ground. So maybe I'm a beta tester, prototyper and what used to be called an 'intelligent customer' ;0) - given my background in social media.

Whilst I have to keep getting my head around things like - co-creating apps vs apps for co-creation, the relative role of digital apps as metaphor vs actual end product, and the relative accessibility of (digital) apps for iphone, web etc to the population as a whole... I think I get your drift. So I see myself as currently in need of the following

1. Examples of broad based, generic, community involvement boosting projects conducted on a hyper-local basis - so that I can see what my embryonic proposal is most like

2. 'Practical steps' or 'checklist' tools (typically the less digital) corresponding to each type/model within those examples models - giving me an idea of what to do to develop one of that type..

Then, in a more digital appy context...

3. Tools to generate/extract better maps of, and information about, my own square mile (for which read anyone else's size/type of area of choice)

4. Guidance on selection of the most helpful first step social media tools, platforms, spaces for creating an initial rallying and discussion space - is it a multi-author blog, an off the shelf online community tool, a very simple e-mail listserver approach, or an hyperlocal 'brand' identity which spans all these but also uses Facebook, twitter, tags etc. Initially, for me, this is about giving a home and mutual introductions to people who buy into the this particular square mile proposition via links, media ads, leaflets, f2f, pubs, churches, workplaces etc,etc. But does it need future-proofing... are there LA-developed, CLG-supported, proven models already? [Personally I half-know some answers, but I'm trying to be more agnostic for this exercise - not wearing the hat of a potentially designer and provider]

5. Geographically derived (or geography-plus-interest - but *not* just interest based) directories of existing projects, organisations, networks, sponsors, that it would make sense to hook up with... transcending the need to belong to a particular forum/community to make contact with them.

6. Organisational models, financing etc - especially to identify what the de minimis model looks like for not just 'being me' and funding this out of my own time and pocket... i.e. how to become able to take modest donations and speak as an 'entity' without becoming 99% bureaucrat and committee-ista.

So that's me expressing a here-and-now shopping list. Some of the group might find it a puzzling list, if I'm supposed to be an expert and if they already operate in an environment of 3rd sector and local government networks - but that's becuase I'm deliberately waving a blank page on behalf of every other potential person who just wants to do something local to join things up, and doesn't have a template... or an issue-based axe to grind.

Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on August 9, 2010 at 18:03

Thanks Nick - that's a terrific brief for a guide/store to support anyone aiming to use social tech to organise locally. There's a couple of background discussions we should be able to tie together soon, with ideas on how to develop. Meanwhile any other "intelligent customers" for the store ... or potential stall holders?

Permalink Reply by clarewhite on August 13, 2010 at 20:16

Guess I fall into 4 - I'm interested in developing a platform for creative types to be involved, perhaps through creating graphics and text to the front-end of the apps. Icons will be particularly important, as they can make something that sounds a bit dry on paper into something social and appealing. A service like Aviary could work well for the icons and maybe you would adapt a wiki for the text.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Mowatt on August 23, 2010 at 14:11

I can offer some experience. I started my own form of a social app store in 2004. I'd co-created a software product called Meeting Point which had been deployed in both public and private sector environments for some years. Failing to secure seed funding. I determined to use the product to fund social enterprise using a 'profit for social purpose' model, social business is what most would call it now, we called it people-centered economics

The choice of an IT product was a good fit, as the white paper for the people-centered model had made much of the role of information access:

"The greatest initial social and economic risk of the Information Age is in creating two distinctly different classes of people: the technological haves and have-nots. Those who have access to information and information technology have a reasonable expectation to survive and prosper. Those with limited or no access will be left out. This holds true for individuals as well as nations. The key to the future is access to free flow of information. To the extent that the free flow of information is restricted or diminished, people will be left to endure diminished prospects of prosperity and even survival.

"In order for economic development to take place in any given location, the very first thing required, before anything else can possibly happen, is information. This information includes first and foremost where to look for the necessary resources to do anything. If new businesses are needed, knowing they are needed and finding funding for them are two very different things. The first step is to locate possible capital resources in order to move forward, and this step is no more and no less than information. Once resources are located, the next step is what terms and conditions are involved in obtaining those resources -- more information. Once this is known, paperwork must be completed, business plans made, market research and due diligence conducted, and all of this compiled and forwarded to the appropriate parties. Again, nothing more than information. In fact, most of the work involved between identifying a need and solving the problem is information acquisition and management: getting and developing information.

"As Alvin Toffler predicted in Power Shift, where once violence and then wealth were dominant forms of power, information is now becoming the dominant power. Those nations with the greatest freedom of information and means of transmitting it have now become the most powerful and influential, and the strongest economically. Toffler also predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union would come about due primarily to its authoritarian control and limiting of information. Unfortunately for Russian citizens, this old habit has continued for them beyond the collapse of the former Soviet Union and will at the least make an interesting case study on the survivability of a once strong nation which still remains committed to limiting and controlling information.

"By going with the normal flow of free-market enterprise and the emerging replacement of monetary capital with intellectual capital as the dominant form of basic enterprise capitalization, it becomes easier to set up new companies primarily on the basis of invested intellectual capital. (See Post-Capitalist Society, by Peter Drucker). In plain English, socially responsible and forward-thinking companies can be set up quickly and cheaply--and these companies have indefinite potential for earnings and localized, targeted economic development. The initial objective is to develop model enterprises and communities, then implement successful strategies from those models into surrounding communities regionwide or nationwide, as needed."

The first project undertaken is on David's list - community broadband. The business plan set out a profit-for-purpose model from which surplus broadband revenue would be invested in CDFIs, There was no hope of seed funding we discovered, with Skoll's Social Edge being about the only place that such an idea could be posted.

We then determined to focus our efforts on Eastern Europe and by the end of 2006, the outcome was a strategy paper describing a national scale rollout of affordable broadband, social enterprise and microfinance. It describe a social enterprise investment fund which had been costed at $1.5 billion. The paper called on the US for assistance weighing this soft power investment against the cost of war in iraq, for just one week.

We were aware by then the Democrats had gained control of the Senate and than in the Foreign Relations committee were Joe Biden and a lesser know young senator called Bsrack Obama, who were anticipated to be receptinve in spite of the Republican Bush administration of the time.

Interesting when the concept of a US social innovation fund was first mooted in November 2008, it was
justified by savings made from withdrawing from Iraq.

Meanwhile back to the project and 4 years down the line. Affordable broadband rollout began a year later, as did the doubling of adoption allowances, along with a pledge for 400+ rehab centres for disabled children and a pilot homes for all children initiative in Kharkov where the strategy paper was delivered. One small success is that since 2007, domestic adoption has increased by 40%.

So I'm for the idea and much more, since we can already demonstrate international impact. I just hope it won't be called Big Society !

Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on August 23, 2010 at 14:37

Thanks Jeff - and glad to see you here.
I suspect that quite a few people, like you, can trace their enthusiasm and hard-won learning in this field back a few years. It is really valuable if we can bring that experience to bear.
I first got excited in the mid-1990s seeing development of community networks and Free-nets in North America.
As I've said elsewhere, the Social App Store idea is in part a metaphor for thinking through ways in which we can use new social tech, blended with older innovations, for social action.
And we can call it whatever we like:-)

Permalink Reply by Jeff Mowatt on August 23, 2010 at 14:59

Hi David,

One aspect of progress in the virtual world is having built a following for the social purpose business approach over the last 2-3 years. There are now 500+ members of "social business and for benefit corporations" on Linkedin refllecting the interest in CICs, L3Cs, B-Corps and Grameen social purpose business models which are sometimes confused by social media business models.

Linkedin is fast becoming unusable with its format changes so I've re-launched the group with its own network though it might justify a subgroup here. The RSA Fellowship is another network which seems to be treading approximately the same path as social by social and they have a 'profit with a purpose' group which I didn't create.

Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on August 23, 2010 at 15:11

Thanks Jeff, do keep us in touch on that. I've been an RSA Fellow, but decided to take a break this year, so will rely on others to report. And please forgive me if I can't always match your high level of online engagement:-)