The A Spot

So I wish I had those 12 steps laid out so I could plot out my moves based on those steps. While unfortunately I may not have a clear road map just yet, thanks to Lara Birnback at Public Agenda , I do have some great new resources. Lara has pointed me to LogoLink - Learning Initiative on Citizen Participation and Local Governance - (from their site) LogoLink is a global network of practitioners from civil society organisations, research institutions and governments working to deepen democracy through greater citizen participation in local governance. LogoLink encourages learning from field-based innovations and expressions of democracy which contribute to social justice.

There are some great reports, resources, conference proceedings here from all over the world. I am definitely going to spend some more time on this site. One paper that jumped out at me was Triumph, Deficit or Contestation? Deepening the ‘Deepening Democracy’ Debate

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One of our loyal and lonely readers - Gretchen - has asked for a post that unpacks the term Web 2.0 to give us a bit of context since both Matthew and I have been posting about this idea a bit lately. Not to rehash what has already been done on numerous other blogs I will try to keep this relevant to the larger issue of advocacy.

For short hand here is a quick breakdown from Tim O’Reilly’s blog from 2005 which compares by example Web 2.0 tools to Web 1.0 tools:

Web 2.0 has advanced alot since he first wrote this article.  There is still alot of hype around the potential for these tools in places where broadband Internet access is not readily available but we have seen the connections between web based content and cell phones, public access computing centers, small footprint web enabled devices break down some of the barriers to entry.  Web 2.0 is all about tools which help users generate content, communicate and share ideas, materials and resources with others, craft and build campaigns.  Some ubiquitous Web 2.0 tools are Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Change.org.

Beth Kanter over at Beth’s blog does a good job describing some of the Web 2.0 tools - such as new media and social media tools - which are relevant to advocacy as: Social media is … a way of using the Internet to instantly collaborate, share information, or have a conversation ideas or causes we care about. It’s a world where anyone can be a publisher, a reporter, an artist, a filmmaker, a photographer or pundit …. Even an activist or citizen philanthropist!”

Examples of Web 2.0 use in the civil society sector are rounded up here in the session materials, outlines and resources from the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans.

Thanks to the new Pipes set up by Marnie Webb at Compumentor which help folks find content related to technology and civil society I was able to find this blog on ICT for Democracy set up by the folks at ELDIS . If you have never browsed ELDIS you should. It is chock full of development research and discussion aimed at helping us create change.

The ICT for Democracy blog is new, launched this past April, but the bloggers have already posted some great bits on the potential for technology to be a Trojan Horse which empowers users to act in ways they never before imagined.

If you dig a bit deeper in the ELDIS community you will find that bloggers can post on multiple, issue or topic based blogs. If you click on a user you can find all the posts they have made to various discussions throughout the community. Very cool.

So along with the blogs and e-mail newsletters which flood my in box every day I am also subscribed to updates from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. They have a great project on leadership and building state capacity which has had a number of interesting meetings over the years and whose staff conduct trainings and programs around the world. Recently the Dir of the project - Howard Wolpe - former Congressman and expert on Africa co wrote an article called Democracy and Peace-building: Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom. The lessons he and Steve McDonald cite underpin much of the work I have been doing with ISC. Working in communities which have been divided by ethnic, religious, political, cultural issues requires a focus on building trust, collaborative capacity and a focus on consensus building not political competition. I think we take on one particular piece of the puzzle - helping divided communities achieve results on issues of shared mutual interest in a collaborative way builds their capacity to work together on other more intractable issues.

Unfortunately it is in a Journal which is only available for purchase so I cannot cite the entire article. I have written Mr. Wolpe and asked for permission to post in its entirety. Click here for an excerpt from the paper. (more…)

Hat tip to Michael Gilbert for alerting me to this 2007 report from the Health Communication Partnership called Taking Community Empowerment to Scale. I am currently working on a few pilot projects as part of our work in Ukraine under the Ukraine Citizen Action Network. Perfect timing to read this report as I am thinking about how to set these pilots up to easily scale if they prove useful and relevant to citizens in Ukraine. I was struck by the 14 recommendations…these are integral to how ISC does its programming and crucial when working to mainstream advocacy and citizen engagement into every day life.
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