web2fordev conference impressions (2)

September 30, 2007 | comment1 Comment

Complexity
Another key lesson was the big question of ‘how to best combine all these web2.0 tools to obtain better results.’ Everybody is still experimenting –this might be what web2.0 is all about. Nevertheless, I understood the importance of taking a holistic approach and use a combination of blogs according to the objective. So, flickr nynkekruiderinkexperimenting still needs a strategic approach; in that way users do not fear an information overload. Blogs, for example, can be used for knowledge sharing, but then they may need to be very different when used for a campaign. And how are wikis and blogs linked to preserve transparency? I did not hear about strategies for best combining all the tools using available data and rss feeds. How do I offer all these channels for collaboration and still filter what is important to me? This has to be overcome to prove the benefit and not just use the technology for the sake of it.

I had the feeling everybody shared an enthusiasm for the potential that development can have, but I also only saw a few clear structured projects. A complete contrast to that was Damir Simunic, who talked about Collaboration on the Edge of Network. He basically argued that web2.0 is still too far away from broad usage by presenting a tool relying solely on emails, which has enough capabilities. Even though I find email is often an information overload application, Damir gave an interesting example: at the WHO, a 20.000 people network manages over easy mailing lists and easy features, proving traditional ways can be successful, especially in developing countries.

Networks
Dan McQuillan wrote a powerful wake up post and summarized very good the strategic questions about ‘dealing now with the available possibilities through web2.0.’ To me, it seems the power of web2.0 has been shared by most participants, but what could be done with it now and how to engage it was still unclear. In my panel, I asked therefore, whether organizations are open to sharing, willing to network and engage in such a participative manner. The conference showed how web2.0 brings an unusual mixture of individuals (e.g. activists), organizations, media and companies together. It needs a change in culture towards more openness and trust, which is not always easy –after all, who wants to or can accept that his or her wiki text has suddenly changed?
Collaboration through web2.0 is happening between a diversified landscape of these actors, and I wonder what will be the outcome of that. I liked the way Dan quotes Charles Leadbeater on ‘low-cost, self-organising networks will innovate all kinds of needed solutions.’ I hope that this innovation will be open source driven.

Content
Interestingly, there were few discussions about content. What is the type of content that will be delivered, shared and remixed through web2.0? What kind of content is there and how can it be virtually exchanged in a rather oral culture? Moses Kisembo and Jon Corbett summarized it nicely in a discussion we had. What helps all these new forms of information and technology when one does not know how to use them, and then it does not have any benefit, e.g. for a farmer? The question of relevance of all this user generated content was rarely discussed. Ethan Zuckermann emphasized in his presentation how important filters in this regard are. How to filter the information or voices to a meaningful size to find all that that is important to me. Aggregators can help, and so do social bookmarking sites, which show evaluated ranked webistes. More important are however, people, who sort, comment and translate content and make sense and relevance in the growing sea of information.

However, I imagine too that feeds and tagging can help. And as fast as the web developed, more things are coming up such as rss manipulation. That means, you drag data from different sources and with the sum of it, you make something better. And that is also what Michael Saunby’s presentation showed. With a mix of rss and data, manipulation fascinating new geographical information can be generated. These mashups can be mixed with all kind of freely available information sources, and as with Michael Saunby’s case, allow individual climate change analysis.

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web2fordev conference impressions (1)

September 29, 2007 | commentLeave a Comment

flickr nynkekruiderink Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to blog during the web2fordev conference. Organization work was more than what I expected, and of course there were so many interesting people to talk to around, I just couldn’t let go. Favourably, we got about 50 blog posts mainly from our journalists, who came from different African countries, and who of course did a great job reporting. Now some sessions can be watched completely over video (unfortunately only Internet explorer though). The week started with an interesting web taster day, and went through many more topics ending the week, yesterday, with a farmer led documentation workshop from Dorine Rüter. Interesting cases were presented, of how farmers in Africa use digital cameras to document and create awareness of their problems in order to help each other. Let me now summarize impressions from theses days at the FAO in Rome.

Inclusion
Seen by many people just as a technology, the web2fordev conference proved to me -once again- that people are more minded and complying when gathered together for so-called web2.0. The conference–even with the official and formal character it has within the FAO headquarter–got a neat unconference character; as the the director of FAO communication said at the end, “This halls have not seen this kind of event before.” It was a good mixture of people from many different backgrounds. There could have been more activists and pioneers in my opinion, but the conference fortunately attracted many people from all around the world.

Patience
Through the days, I felt again that we are still at the bottom or ground work of the using web2.0 for development. Many participants had just started experimenting with blogs, etc. by themselves, and had an understandable difficulty to grasp web2.0 in all its dimensions. Therefore, some discussions went not as deep as I wished, but the different perspectives were valuable. There was often a mixture of scepticism and enthusiasm. Will wikis make sense one day? How much trust do we need to place on wikis , and can we even establish that only virtually? Where is the audience for blogs and how can I filter all that information? That way, on one side, participants helped each other to make sense of all these tools, and on the other, sophisticated database RSS models were presented by Thierry Helmer or Thomas Metz. I wonder how can we cope with the challenge of having so many tools developed in such a short time? Many people are certainly not disposed or cannot follow.

Web2.0 in the field
The conference showed me clearly that a lot has been done in and between organizations. That is where the potential and the easiest implementation lies. There are a few projects in developing countries that have not yet implemented web2.0, but unless obvious challenges are not bridged, it will be difficult to implement more. It was, therefore, helpful and quite realistic to hear from Moses Kisembo and Kado Muir that blogs and wikis are not seldom light-years away from what is needed in Uganda or Nigeria. Nevertheless, bloggers such as Prince Deh from Ginks show how important this pioneer work can be. One high hope at the conference, which was often mentioned, was the mobile phone. Some presentations had in my opinion more of traditional web approach, but there were also many exceptional interesting cases such as Brosdi .org, which is supported by Bellanet. Market information systems and knowledge sharing via questions and answers (e.g. audioblogging from India) were the strongest examples in terms of rural development. One major success factor was that it has a benefit for the community, and in that way they are willing to contribute.

Please check the web2fordev blog for more information. There have been 50 posts written around the conference. Nynke Kruiderink and I give a little interview on tagging.

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web2fordev conference has started

September 25, 2007 | commentLeave a Comment

A great first day on the web2fordev conference lies behind me. I arrived on Sunday and already had the pleasure to sit around with my fellow bloggers - journalists from Africa. Lately they already made some very interesting podcasts and during the conference we will have video interviews, but also direct video coverage from selected sessions. It is so far a great atmosphere with people from all around the world as far as the Fidschi, South Sea. Today we focused on training for web2.0 beginners. I did two presentation on blogging and tagging together with Tobias Eigen, Karel Novotny and Pier Andrea Pirani and many more were involved.

bild-2.pngWe are the FAO headquarter in Rome and we already had interesting discussions on web2fordev. I really liked a presentation by Janyanta Chatterjee about Sharing farmers knowledge through audioblog, which shows the impressive potential of these new technologies. And it will become even more effective ones it goes over mobile phones.

I really liked the openness and high interest of all participants, which was very motivating as a presenter. Once again I experienced how complex web2.0 is and how many facets it has. Blogging was fairly easy to present, whereas the different purposes of blogging are often not known. I presented the personal blog approach, a perspective on an internal group blog, the Nata village blog and the Voices of the field blog.

Very intriguing was a discussion during our tagging presentation. Even though tagging sounds in general easy, I experienced once again, how different tagging is used and therefore how tricky it is to explain it. Nevertheless the interest by audience showed to me that many sense the power in it. I will write the next days more posts from the conference either here or at the web2fordev blog.

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An overview of blogging for development

September 19, 2007 | comment3 Comments

Background
As some of you might already know I work for GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), and I am of course very interested in the potential of the web towards development aid and international cooperation. Surprisingly–and correct me if I am wrong!–but to me, it seems there are not many blogs out their in this field yet. There are of course a lot of portals –and two of the big ones are the development gateway or eldis.org. However, in my opinion, the development sector has yet not grasped the potential of web2.0. I already argued in a post that the result is that this shift, so far, is challenging traditional development agencies.

What is there in the world wide web?
One interesting website is aid worker network, which contains personal blogs from all around the world. There are also individual blogs that describe in an authentic and provoking way how it is to work in this field. Check out these examples from Afghanistan and Sudan.
The science world is also blogging, and such is the case of Oversea Development Institute or professors such as Dan Rodrik for international political economy, or John Daly for knowledge for development. But once again, I am surprised that for such an international topic, blogs are not used in a wider scale. For example, why aren’t there any more professors having blogs? And why so few development organizations offer blogs? Some organisations in this field have started experimenting with it (Worldbank) or using it as a first step internally (GTZ, UN etc.).

screenshotBlogs for storytelling
As blogs can have different purposes and styles of expression, in the humanitarian relief field, they seem to be quite successfully used. The Guardian issued an interesting article (not online available) a few weeks ago, which highlights the potential for blogs and how organisations such as Oxfam or the International Rescue Comittee (IRC) use them as an strategic communication tool. Other examples are “Voices from the field“, representing the work from IRC and impressions from all around the world; and Ian Bray from Oxfam blogging for BBC about the recent flood in India.

In old times, it took weeks to get information form disasters into the global media and “now we can get blogs or photos up in just hours, which are able to get voices of ordinary people heard by a potential audiences of millions and can really press home the desperation and emergency situation happening on the ground.” So, in a way donors can read from the beneficiaries about what has happened to their money. The article continues, especially the Tsunami “revolutionised the aid world’s use of digital media”, being it the above described as different communication or the direct funding over the web. Blogging itself opens new fast ways of coverage, but even more importantly, an individual perspective from persons concerned.

The difference technology made
The economist argues in a recent article, “technology is transforming humanitarian relief—and shifting the balance of power between donors and recipients.” The article describes how Internet and mobile phones offer new instruments to coordinate more efficiently disaster relief. Relief Web is a portal to coordinate these efforts. It describes also that communication is not a one way street, through more cheaply available technology such as mobile phones, also small NGOs or even individuals can engage. So, “technology completely alters the way humanitarian work is done.” “In the humanitarian operation of the future,” says Save the Children’s Mr Porter, “beneficiaries of emergency aid will use technology to tell us what they need—cash, food, or education—find out from us what to expect, and track its arrival, just as we can track an order from Amazon.com now.”

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Search your own information web

September 16, 2007 | comment3 Comments

I just stumbled over deliGoo, a great new search mashup. It combines del.icio.us and Google’s custom search. That means, it can search for a keyword through all the websites of the 2829 bookmarks in my del.icio.us account. This gives me amazingly relevant results because my del.icio.us bookmarks represent my own web of topics–those I am interested on.

information_web.jpg

You have to install deliGoo in your Firefox browser. When you run it the first time, it takes some time to include all your bookmarked websites into Google’s custom search. But then, once it is done, you can search through all these websites by typing any keyword. Now I am even happier of having invested so much time bookmarking so many websites that are part of my personal knowledge management. Here is my deliGoo search (Sorry works only with the firefox plugin.)

One can also search single tags in del.icio.us too. For example the NPK4DEV (nonprofit knowledge management for development) tag, which is collaboratively used by various people, offers great websites. That way you can search in websites chosen by people for being interesting and valuable. Not surprising, the results are far better. To me, it is another step proving that web2.0, with such tools, makes the web more useful and handy to anyone.

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Weekly links: Blogging for democracy and African ingenuity

September 15, 2007 | commentLeave a Comment
  • Two articles on mobile for development
    Mobiles for the ‘world’s poorest’ is a new article from BBC, which describes how Jeffery Sachs Millenium village project applies mobile phones. Another article describes how PDAs are saving lives in Africa.
  • Blogging for democracy around the world
    Interesting interview with Antony Loewenstein, who talks about his trip to various countries to visits blogger writing for democracy. In his opinion “Blogs have certainly democratised the political process, and allowed “average” citizens the chance to engage.” In another guardian commentary he argues in the context of the Arab world, that Bloggers “are challenging the political status-quo like never before, despite the risks in doing so.”
  • Afrigadget
    A great blog from Erik Hersman, kikuyumoja and others, which shows the fascinating art of improvisation in Africa. Check out for example the BodaPhone or a home made welding machine. The title of the blogs says it all: Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity.

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Innovative online activism mashup

September 9, 2007 | comment1 Comment

Ethan Zuckerman presents a great example of on-line activism; this time on the President of Tunisia. It is a video made by Astrubal about the Tunisian presidential airplane. Although the President has been only out of the country three times in the last years, the airplane has been sighted all over Europe. As people all over the world make photos of airplanes and upload them to websites, the presidential airplane has been identified in different locations many times throughout the last years.

But Ben Ali’s plane has been to Europe far more often, raising questions about whether the official plane, fueled at taxpayer expense, is being used to accomodate vacations in the south of Spain or shopping excursions in the fashion centers of Europe.

It seems to me that this great video shows the power of the web within different dimensions:

  1. Using the rich data and information available in the web (airplane photos)
  2. Collaboratively investigating background information (presidential flights)
  3. Using available tools to produce a striking video (Google maps)
  4. Offering this movie to a worldwide audience on video sharing sites
  5. Advocating for the cause in different networks through blogging

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Few steps to a powerful social software application

September 8, 2007 | comment2 Comments

I have been dealing with different kinds of content management systems for some years now. What I find fascinating lately it is how applications became powerful and how easy they are to handle by non-experts. Through these applications, creating social media and networking is possible for everybody. Wikis and blogs can be set up in minutes through different web services. But also social network software such as Drupal, advanced content management systems such as Joomla, and of course, blog software such as Wordpress, can be easily installed with little effort. For less then 10 bucks and with little web knowledge, powerful applications are around the corner.

  1. Pick a hosting package which offers these free and open source software and includes one click installation for applications.
  2. Most of these providers offer you a web based administration interface, where you can choose from many different software. With a few clicks a software is installed.
  3. The application can be controlled through another web based interface and can be manually configured to different needs. For example, Wordpress can be combined with blog posts and static pages to have a blog and a normal homepage.
  4. Hundreds of free websites’ templates are offered for all sorts of different taste. In Joomla, it can be easily uploaded on the website itself and you can jump between different designs.
  5. Hundreds of different modules or plug-ins allow you to extend your website in all directions. These modules are mostly for free and only need to be uploaded via ftp and activated in the web based configuration.

Of course these steps are a bit simplified, and to have a successful website running, still expertise is needed. However, with already included multiple language packages, these free and open source applications set the path for great networks to social change everywhere. Rightly done, these websites surely can compete with big portals in terms of their features and social networking features. Some applications offer even other distinct services such as BuzzMonitor and Pligg:

BuzzMonitor is “an open source application that “listens” to what people are saying about the World Bank across blogs and other sites in order to help the organization understand and engage in social media.” It is developed by Development Seed, who are also making a presentation at the web2fordev conference and Pierre Wielezynski from the World Bank. It is a monitoring that includes all kinds of feeds and allows them to be rated by the members. This is excellent for a community or organisation to get a picture of certain topics. It can be tested here: buzzm.worldbank.org/tour

NGO POSTA truly amazing application is Pligg, which is a Digg like software. It is a good approach for bringing people together to share and rate news from the web. It is, for example, used for social development here: ngopost.org. With this tool a community share and discuss what is happening in the info-sphere of the web. I would really like to use that application, however, I imagine it is not easy to involve others to join, when everybody is already involved in so many on-line networks. Does somebody have an idea?

In conclusion, I think the development of free and open source social software is decisive to engage for social change and development through web2.0. It will allow to spread the social media thrive in all areas. It is the openness of this application that let us communicate, sharing and creating social media in new ways.

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10 arguments for web2.0 in an organization

September 3, 2007 | comment2 Comments

It is not always easy to argue in favour of web2.0 tools when you are faced with these arguments:

  • More information? My mailbox already drives me nuts!
  • The content written by some people is often so irrelevant and just for entertainment.
  • I spent already so much time online and now I shall even invest more time on these social networks, wikis etc.
  • I can find my stuff in google. Why shall I tag, blog or share bookmarks?
  • Didn’t we try this online interaction before and it failed? Look at forums and why they never worked.
  • IT solutions often fail. Look at all these outdated databases where you cannot find what you need.

Lida Rose at flickrI already wrote some posts about communication and knowledge sharing through web2.0 in an organization. To me, it seems worthwhile to experiment with it, especially because it empowers each member of an organization. But being convinced and enthusiastic is not enough to help people overcome their skepticism about just another set of IT tools.
So I tried to summarize ten arguments, which help me often persuade colleagues and friends to give web2.0 a try.

  1. Overview: Look at folder structure on your computer. Did it work to store your documents in the right folder and to find them quickly later on? How are the search results of your intranet? Imagine you could criss-cross through tag clouds of topics from your organization, with a few clicks you would find your niche topic. It is not magic. Social bookmarking tools, such as delicious, show it works. It does not use folders. Instead it relies on tags.
  2. Transparency: In emails and classical Intranet, dominated environment information is in-transparent. It goes vertical or horizontal and hides all the valuable information–interesting for others–in mailboxes of individuals.
  3. Relevance: Emails reach you whether you want them or not, and a lot of their content has no relevance to your work. With RSS feeds, you subscribe to what is relevant to your work or what deals about your topic. With your blog, you gather your own community of interest around you and share practice.
  4. Connectedness: Imagine address books or yellow pages would not be the only source to find competence. You could surf different wikis, blogs and bookmark pages, and see behind every page your colleagues discussions or people with similar links. All these conversations make you aware of who are the colleagues sharing your interest or problem.
  5. Openness: Using the read/write web in organizations means that you can interact at any point –being it in a wiki project page or a colleague’s blog post– and help to link the right people and the right topics together. For example, a profile page with a tag cloud of posts and links shows each person’s interests in detail.
  6. Enrichment: Do you struggle over formal documents written in a boring way, leaving out the experiences and opinions. To codify tacit knowledge is a difficult task anyway. Blogs can become storytelling tools amplifying hundreds of learning experiences from daily practice of teams and colleagues.
  7. Easiness: The best part of most of the web2.0 tools is their easy handling. These tools are consequently made for people and have been many times tested to make them better. The beta mode of many applications shows their openness to approach improvement. In contrast, to complicated content management systems, wikis and blogs do not require training.
  8. Technology: A great thing about many web2.0 tools is their often easy technology. You do not have to ask for every second step to the IT department. It is not a sophisticated database with a complicated interface that fails in giving you the right information. Web2.0 means that staff can create and mix tools and media themselves. Blogs can be set up in minutes, interdependencies are created through links and not failing search robots.
  9. Network: Did you ever struggle while navigating through a website? No surprise because it shows only a one dimensional perspective on the organizational knowledge. When colleagues frequently bookmark what interest them in an organizational web and share this with others, then, they weave their own web. This, not only links the real knowledge domains important for an organization; it also creates a social network.
  10. Contribution: Such a web relies on the contribution of its members. It, therefore, highlights and re-numerates the most active contributors, who are willing to share knowledge and like to connect people to learn from each other.

And last but not least, web2.0 has of course obstacles because interaction often remains online. But how great can it work when you find an interesting blog post from a colleague and then ask him to have lunch next week.

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