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.

There is alot of buzz (some deserved and some not) about the potential of web 2.0 to revolutionize how we reach out to supporters and mobilize them around certain issues. As great as all that is it helps to understand how social networks - live, breath, eat, grow - and you cannot always see that with a web-based tool.

The folks with Net-Map have put together a great, resource rich, website to help folks understand and use Net-Map: Net-Map is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes. Relying on pens, paper, colored tags, stackable pieces you can create sophisticated network maps which help you better understand the network you are trying to influence. Read the rest of this entry »

As many of us know, one of the challenges advocates often face abroad (if not in the U.S. as well!) is a lack of receptiveness among government bureaucrats to the participation of citizens in public administration.    In Ukraine, as one example, government has not historically been of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Cabinet Ministries whose ostensible purpose is to provide social services have no experience with treating citizens as clients – on the contrary, citizens are often nothing more than problems, flies in the ointment.  Government bodies and processes are not designed to be transparent, but obscure and invisible to outsiders, discouraging or preventing interference. 

Getting government to take citizens seriously requires a significant change in mindset, as well as a whole host of skills and tools unfamiliar to career officials.  Despite the challenges, over the last couple of days in Kyiv I’ve seen some real and exciting opportunities for change.

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