Social Media Workshop in Ukraine
So I have been struggling about what to write about in my first post to the A Spot. First it was a biography post, then a top 10 list post and finally I settled on something with a bit more meat that I think folks will be interested in…a social media workshop in Kiev with NGOs.
Today I facilitated a workshop for staff from NGOs in Ukraine on strategies for using social media tools. This was part two of a series of workshops sponsored by the Ukrainian Citizen Action Network which is a USAID funded program based in Kiev but serving all of Ukraine. My organization, Institute for Sustainable Communities, is the parent organization to UCAN. The first workshop was an all day event introducing the basic tools and concepts of social media. For this second workshop we decided to go deeper by focusing on the strategies for using these tools. A third workshop is planned for later in the spring which fill focus on one or two specific tools.
We had 9 participants from the leading NGOs in Ukraine which are based in Kiev. Besides their own campaigns these organizations provide capacity building and other services to their network and the NGO sector.
- Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union
- Foundation for Ukraine
- IATP
- Initiative Center to Support Social Action (ISAR-Ednannia)
- Successful Communities Institute
- Civic Space
- Ukrainian Center for Common Ground
We focused mainly on strategy…who do the NGOs want to talk to, where are those people online, what are they interested in, what can the NGOs learn from them, what are the stories they want to tell, how do they prepare their organization to make the most of the tools, how do they know when they are successful. I broke them into small groups to play the Social Media game developed by Beth Kanter and David Wilcox. I asked them to develop a scenario and the goals for that work. They chose - a loose coalition of organizations and individuals working on an issue, an NGO which wanted to take a competition online, an NGO focused on a social issue which wanted to build community around that issue. Once they had their scenario they developed 3 goals for the work. Then using the cards from the card deck they explored which social media tools would be most applicable to their strategy and the achievement of their goals. After about 20 minutes of discussion the teams reported back to the group. Three very different approaches emerged:
The group with a competition focused on a project for Philanthropist of the Year had a well developed idea of taking the competition into cyber space. Create a simple website powered by a CMS with a blog integrated into where staff could keep folks up to date on the progress in the competition. Then open a space for contestants to post their entries and supporting media of their worthiness for the prize - video, photos, testimonials. THe public could then comment on and rate each entrant and in the end vote for the finalists. After the competition they could continue their discussions with the winners and even use paypal to make micro donations to the work of the winners. To encourage wider competition they would create a Google Maps Mashup to show on the map where entrants came from in the country. This was a great strategy which would encourage NGOs to use the Internet for more then e-mail. It definitely would privilege the more media savvy NGOs so a concerted effort would have to be made to reach out to NGOs with slower connections or no connection at all. Ukraine is lucky enough to have 25 open Internet Access and Training Centers - IATP - throughout the country which can be used by NGOs.
The second scenario was a totally different take on using the tools. In this case a loose group of NGOs and individual activists wanted to launch a campaign about the Right to Freedom of Movement with a goal of reforming the process for receiving passports. To do this they would build a small team, connect them with an e-mail discussion list and an ICQ network, arm them with digital cameras (every cell phone has one) and digital video cameras (many cell phones have them) and send them out to film the long queues for passports, these would be posted to youtube and a video/photoblog. Once they built up a set of resources and developed a common set of demands they would enlist the citizen journalism community to blog about the issue. They would use a website forum to field questions and complaints from citizens about this issue and compile a top 10 list of issues related to freedom of movement which would form the basis of an online which would be physically to submitted to the Ministry. Using crowdsourcing and flashmob technologies they would bring people together for demonstrations, protests and community actions to draw attention to the issue.
The final group focused on building community among people with disabilities in Ukraine especially those with physical limitations which make it difficult to meet face to face. They would focus on recruiting participants from existing social networking sites in Ukraine and helping members of their network to get online and use a customized social network such as Ning. They would support individuals to set up blogs and maintain one themselves which provided information on laws, work, education opportunities for people with disabilities. What was unique about their plan was they identified they needed a social network moderator or gardener whose job it would be to expand the network, keep it clean and tidy, plant seeds in other places to encourage folks to use the network, be responsive to users issues and demands.
The game was a great innovation and a major improvement on the way presenters have taught participants how to use technology tools in the past. It helped us to reorient ourselves on the strategy and not the details of the specific tools. Thanks David and Beth! You can see my presentation here. Here is the UCAN write up of the workshop - to come. Mentioned in the blogs - Beth Kanter social media goddess.
Plans are in the works for workshop number 3 which will be a repeat of the first introductory workshop but it will be open to the wider NGO community. 30 participants have already signed on. Workshop number 4 will select one or two tools to dig deep into their implementation and application in Ukraine. UCAN also has a write up on the workshop here.
Next steps are to develop a wiki primer on social media tools for Ukraine. This will be posted later this week on the ISC wiki tool site. We will also be supporting the further development of the NGO tech community in partnership with the existing social tech/new media community which is growing in Ukraine by co sponsoring miniBarCamps. This builds on the recently held a BlogCamp with over 300 participants in Kiev. I will post an article technology enabled activism in Ukraine in the next few days from one of the leading new media technologists in Ukraine.