The A Spot

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.

ISC - UCAN Playing the Social Media Game 2

Originally uploaded by ISC ALC
The participants in the Social Media Strategy Workshop loved the social media game and we had a lively discussion about how they would implement these tools as part of their strategy.

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.

(more…)