A community around using social tech for social impact
Building Bridges
After a few weeks of relative silence, I thought I'd blog a short update on what's been happening in the background on Community Voices.
Over the last few weeks I've been pouring through research papers, amongst other things, including our own Community Voices research paper , as well as Hidden Talents II from the Local Government Association. One of the clear thoughts that has arisen from all this delving is that my original question, "How can we connect with isolated communities?" needs to be refined more, it now seems more relevant to ask "how can we build bridges to those organisations that are already working with isolated communities?". This is of direct relevance to the Community Voices project as we build up an itinerary for Kim, our Outreach Manager, in terms of how can we get the message out about Community Voices to those communities that are digitally excluded, or offline. This week Kim has been in Liverpool visiting Vintage Radio amongst other organsations. It was a successful trip, you can read more in her blog including the very human story from Marj .
Building bridges was a key conclusion from the Community Voices research, but actually is a greater challenge for the project itself. How can we build a successful 'hub' that enables communities to connect, doesn't require resource intensive moderation and yet can be owned by those who can benefit from it? Michelle Ide-Smith asks this question which I found fascinating to read, and to hear the responses. As David notes, others too are facing this challenge, including Carl Haggerty at Devon County Council, as he notes in his blog.
I would be interested to hear other people's thoughts?
Building on this theme, we have been thinking about a Communities Conference for Community Voices. I know there have been around this idea previously. We wanted to turn the idea of a conference on its head, something that it lead by communities, where the audience is those that are trying to reach and engage with communities, rather than the other way round. It was notable at the Digital Engagement event that communities were missing. Would it be possible to turn this around, a Communities Conference run by communities for the benefit of communities?
Has this been done before, what do people think? Worth trying or doomed to fail? Again, would be interested to hear people's thoughts.
Over the last few weeks I've been pouring through research papers, amongst other things, including our own Community Voices research paper , as well as Hidden Talents II from the Local Government Association. One of the clear thoughts that has arisen from all this delving is that my original question, "How can we connect with isolated communities?" needs to be refined more, it now seems more relevant to ask "how can we build bridges to those organisations that are already working with isolated communities?". This is of direct relevance to the Community Voices project as we build up an itinerary for Kim, our Outreach Manager, in terms of how can we get the message out about Community Voices to those communities that are digitally excluded, or offline. This week Kim has been in Liverpool visiting Vintage Radio amongst other organsations. It was a successful trip, you can read more in her blog including the very human story from Marj .
Building bridges was a key conclusion from the Community Voices research, but actually is a greater challenge for the project itself. How can we build a successful 'hub' that enables communities to connect, doesn't require resource intensive moderation and yet can be owned by those who can benefit from it? Michelle Ide-Smith asks this question which I found fascinating to read, and to hear the responses. As David notes, others too are facing this challenge, including Carl Haggerty at Devon County Council, as he notes in his blog.
I would be interested to hear other people's thoughts?
Building on this theme, we have been thinking about a Communities Conference for Community Voices. I know there have been around this idea previously. We wanted to turn the idea of a conference on its head, something that it lead by communities, where the audience is those that are trying to reach and engage with communities, rather than the other way round. It was notable at the Digital Engagement event that communities were missing. Would it be possible to turn this around, a Communities Conference run by communities for the benefit of communities?
Has this been done before, what do people think? Worth trying or doomed to fail? Again, would be interested to hear people's thoughts.
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Tags: Community, Conference, Voices, communities
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Comment by David Wilcox on December 2, 2009 at 10:41
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Paul, Aidan - maybe we should be looking at a range of events and activities as well as a bigger get-together, with DIY kits. There's now a lot social media surgeries, game workshops etc happening around the country. I just did one in-house for a major public engagement consultancy where we used a version of the social by social game, then started to build the results on Ning. Last week Amy and I did a surgery in Peterborough with RSA, on Friday I'm doing a mini-game with localgov officers in Wigan. How did yours go this week Paul?
I've started to outline a toolkit that anyone wanting to do an event could dip in to: see here. Then there's the social reporter toolkit to do - started here.
How about collaborating - with others - on some event toolkits designed for working with non-tech community interests? Could then showcase at the bigger event as part of mix? We've talked about social media a lot - I sense now's the time to shift focus even more on to how to do it, particularly within a civic society context.
Kirkless sounds like a great model
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Comment by Paul Webster on December 2, 2009 at 0:47
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Hi
Im doing some work with Voluntary Action Kirklees around a Communities event they are organising and cirrently planning for early next year. At present this is shaping up to be
- an event of Inspiration,
- local community sucess stories ... oh and this is the tech used
- hands-on surgeries
- social media "find out more" booths
Will keep you posted
Paul
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Thanks Aidan - that's really helpful. For me, it chimes in with some discussions we are having with IDeA and others around the knowledge hub (see khub group) `on how to create more of a market place for products and services - as well as ideas. This might be community groups <-> community techies <-> councils <-> suppliers <-> anyone offering free or low cost resources. More here on the idea of an Open Innovation Exchange.
I'm with you in wishing this to see this driven by users, not just social media enthusiasts (though I am one).
There's a meeting of the knowledge hub steering group next week, and I hope we'll have more then. We'll certainly be open about any opportunities and looking for collaborators (or just cheering on anyone who gets going!) Sorry it's a bit fuzzy at present ... but sensing othres are moving the same way: how do we do good stuff faster, better, cheaper by sharing, learning, exchanging.
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Comment by Aidan Kelly on December 1, 2009 at 13:26 -
Hi David/Paul,
Apologies for the delay in responding to your comments...and thank you for the links and new sources of information.
I completely agree with Paul re. people not wanting to feel like they're "done to". It's a difficult path to navigate in terms of getting the information out there, but then finding the appropriate way and time to step back and allow the community to foster it's own ideas and drive them forward. The 'hub' idea is part of this process, we feel. I had a quick look at the SKiLD website and the resources, there's quite an extensive range there but certainly we could potential add value through Media Trust's training and resources on digital media, social networking, etc.
Re. the conference, it's really just a basic idea at present but certainly building on the theme of not wanting to duplicate, we should use existing communication channels and build partnerships with those organisations already working in this space. Our main idea was on how we could make the conference community focused, rather than about communities, in a way that enabled human face-to-face interaction so that:
* people with knowledge and expertise could connect with communities looking for those skills
* communities could showcase their digital media projects and be inspirational to others - move away from what digital media they used, more to the solution they delivered, could that solution be applied to a different community in different circumstances?
* people & organisations with resources, funding and training can determine whether their portfolios are relevant to grassroots communities, and how to adapt them so that can be used by as wider an audience as possible
* make as many resources freely available as possible, so that they can distributed through existing networks openly and shared (particularly to those off-line) - a sort of amnesty on resources
I hope this useful?
I will follow up with the links, they are very useful, so I'm sure I'll have further ideas.
Aidan
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David / Aidan
Just time for a quick reply.
The people who are the best connected with local communities are the local community development workers - many of these are based at CVS / Vol Action (or the cumbersome Local Infrastructure Organisations). They are 100% about helping community organisations develop and meet community needs.
At NAVCA we run a programme call SKiLD (logon required) which aims to raise the skills and knowledge of local development workers in a range of topics. Hyperlocal reporting / social media skills / new media campaigning etc. are not currently offered as a skill - probably should be!
My project at NAVCA aims to raise the general understanding of tech for efficiency and effectiveness in LIOs through regionally based ICT Champions.
I don't think we are many miles off cracking this one, but need to remember that the people we are targetting are:
- small organisations / communities
- have limited capacity and time to engage
- may have older technology
- may not have access to internet at speeds we are used to (we have people using our website on dial-up)
- have other priorities and see the web as secondary to their life / campaigning / fundrasing
- may not have the money / time / interest to travel to events outside their region / county / town
- do not want to viewed as people being "done to", but that they are in control of the agendas
My view ...
People
Identify the local community activists who can peer support their community and can bring techology into existing conversations. Find out what the person likes and then show them this subject on the web. At no time try to run or force a pre-defined Excel or Word course on people.
Pipes
Maybe not relevent to this post but Digital Britain needs to help the Community Voices (and other) projects with fast (fibre?) connections so that the work in "People" can take place at a decent speed.
PCs
A generic action to make sure the People can access the internet through the Pipes using PCs that are both fit for purpose in terms of age and maintenance. There are a number of social enterprise and community refurbishers of equipment who can supply / rent this at an affordable rate, these should be encouraged to grow. Likewise communities need to know there is a network of mentors (Community Voices) who can help with basic ICT skills and a network of techical support providers (Lasa / Circuit Riders) who can be on call to answer technical / networking / printer / hardware etc questions / provide a repair service.
OK - that was the longer answer ... which is probably now off the initial thread, but something I feel needs serious consideration if you truely want to connect up communities, isolated due to rurality issues or isolated just because no-one has worked with them before.
Paul
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Aidan - great challenge. Could we tease out what might be the proposition to those (not-tech) interests most engaged with communities, to get things started? Maybe some useful connections with another Ning network at Navcaboodle? Paul Webster might be interested...
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