Top posts 2007 and my lessons learnt

December 31, 2007 | comment1 Comment

It is pleasing to reflect about the most visited posts, from this blog, during 2007. I wonder why some triggered more attention than others; and I am looking forward to applying some lessons learnt in 2008.

  1. 4 examples for innovative mobile phone use in Africa
  2. 10 challenges for web2.0 in organizations
  3. What is enterprise2.0? Five pillars for efficient knowledge sharing
  4. A learning story: My way to web2.0
  5. Blog action day: E-waste, the downside of the growing web
  6. Web2.0, knowledge sharing and IT departments
  7. Innovative online activism mashup
  8. An overview of blogging for development
  9. 3 different conversations: blogs to fight poverty
  10. Social webs in Africa

This top ten present five interesting highlights from 2007:

  1. Web2.0 finally entered on a wide scale organizations and companies.
  2. The web finally goes beyond PC’s and has a breakthrough on mobile phones.
  3. Development aid organizations started to sense a potential in web2.0.
  4. It is the southern hemisphere were many innovative web applications came from.
  5. Web2.0 - the collaborative web is more seen in respect to knowledge sharing and learning.

My personal lessons learnt after half a year blogging are different:

  • Orientation
    Through this blog, I try to focus on giving an overview of different developments and link topics. To fish interesting pieces in the information ocean and link them, gives readers an own perspective to continue. I am glad this seems to trigger growing readers. I am still puzzled about how important the linking to other interesting content is valued although it does not take as much work as writing.
  • Consistency
    As always, the clearer you write the better people will get you. I see blogging as a reflection for my learning. So, I still cannot resist to write rather abstract sometimes, but I will try harder to write more concise. The most consistent posts got most readers.
  • Personal
    Writing from a personal perspective is authentic and triggers most of the comments. I often resist writing too personally because I think content is more important than opinion. However it is quite tricky to find out what my audience values higher. :-)
  • Variety
    I am glad the variety of topics seems to be accepted as my subscribers grow. I am, honestly, simply to curious about many things to not write about them. Like the web, topics are simply so much interwoven, and I believe interdisciplinarity is the key.
  • Time
    I invested quite a lot of time on blogging and I am happy about its outcome. To start doing so means to become part of a network with other bloggers, and that is inspiring.

Lastly thanks a lot to all of my readers for checking this blog out through the year 2007. All the best for 2008.

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Social software for social change

December 24, 2007 | commentLeave a Comment

Charles Leadbeater, well known for his book We Think, has released an interesting paper called “Social Software for Social Change.” The paper presents rich examples about civic action through the web and its impact on democracy. With the advice from Dan Mcquillan, Leadbeater greatly links different forms of activism and engagement; as well as elaborating how these new forms of engagements can promote social change, interact with the state and shape politics. Because it is one of the best peaces I have read for a while, I summarize it in this blog post.

This is the content of the paper:

  1. The social web’s democratic potential
  2. New media, new democracy?
  3. The social web in practice
  4. Conclusions

The social web’s democratic potential
Leadbeaters argues that the architecture of participation of web2.0 allows new forms of social activism. One outcome is the focus on causes and not as much on organizations that represent them. It can be called extra-organizational activism, as Allison Fine framed it, or simply ‘do it yourself activism.’ Users can individually start campaigns. The long tail theory can be also translated in unlimited ways for social change; one example is change.org. Leadbeaters also wonders whether civic organizations will be ready to exploit the potentials.

New media, new democracy?
The second chapter deals about potentials for democracy. Leadbeaters identifies three main respects:

  1. Accountability: Citizens have new means to held politicians to account. Mzalendo.com in Kenya is such an example.
  2. Debate: The social web allows for more people to have a voice and promotes collective problem solving.
  3. Campaigning: The web dramatically cutting costs of mobilising people in campaigns.

So, is this really a push forward for e-democracy? For Leadbeater deliberation is a major aspect and mobilization another. The social web offers new venues for engagement and conversations about social change. It is not about technology or just signing a petition, but rather a continuous dialogue about public issues. Leadbeaters sees promising examples such as Wikipedia for an ethic of responsible self-governance and open debate. The challenge is about who will be hosting these deliberative conversations: The state, the media or civil society?

Very interesting are also the downsides Leadbeaters identifies:

  • Cacophony of too many voices and few responses.
  • Echo chamber: In a niche one hears from others a confirmation of what they already think.
  • Quality: How can a certain degree of quality be obtained when the classical gatekeepers such as the media are lost.
  • Equality: Those already rich in knowledge, information and connections may just get richer.

The social web in practice
This chapter analyses new web based actors or “quasi-political parties” such as moveon.org and identifies three forms civil society use the web:

  1. Sustaining innovations in which the third sector uses the social web to do traditional tasks more efficiently
  2. Disruptive innovations which create models for the third sector so it can organize itself
  3. Hybrids in which organisations create a mix of traditional and new ways of working.

Example for the first point are online petitions or fund raising. NGOs are pioneers in widening own constituencies over the web. But another great potential lies in disruptive innovations. This can be for collective problem, e.g. I love Bees, as Leadbeater describes in his book “We Think” or for direct action. The mobile phone is a key for citizen engagement as examples from all over the world show. “A technology that can mobilise friendship networks for political ends thus is potentially very powerful.”

This is only a small summary as the paper goes in much detail and brings together a wide range of thoughts from scholars about this theme. I think it is a great way to learn about the young history for online civic action. Exciting times are ahead for how these new forms will emerge. But one point is the same obstacle online and offline, the citizen have to have an interest to engage and whether the web will open new ways to engage.

I also wonder whether it can and should work as Leadbeaters argues, that the third sector — mainly civil society — takes over to act as independent, trusted guides and moderators for debate, and whether this is necessary? Do you agree with the concerns or downsides? Do you share the potentials for deliberation and mobilization?

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Not English, but a multilingual social web is the key for collaboration

December 17, 2007 | comment4 Comments

The social web is quite separated in different language domains. English is a key language to bridge different cultures, but it can also be a dead end. Worldwide collaboration can only work in a multilingual network.

English is one of the major languages on the net, whether it is on blogs, social networks or the chitchat on twitter. But languages are still breeding fast though the social web; the Japanese blogosphere is one of the biggest ones, for example, Google’s social network, Orkut, is the biggest in Brazil and India. Tanzania is also one example for a vibrant Swahili blogosphere. Chinese mandarin will be the most spoken language on the web. Global Voices is one of the few websites trying to connect cultures. Volunteer translators give insights to countries and cultures where usual media outlets do not report from.

But let’s have a look at the issue of language. Dave Gray has a nice visualization for different dimension of language here. He drew the four steps of language:

  1. Communication
  2. Conversation
  3. Collaboration
  4. Co-creation

On this United Nation website for cultural diversity it says, “Language not only communicates, it defines culture, nature, history, humanity and ancestry.” There are between 6.000 and 7.000 spoken languages on this world and unfortunately half of them are in threat of extinction. Language is fundamental for the collaborative web. It can enrich a discourse through blogs.

Translating machines have improved significantly. One example is the google translation for Arabic. But when it comes to collaboration, it is up to users to find a way to interact. How can we achieve this multilingual web? It needs a high language skill to collaborate effectively and creatively. A long tail of language has emerged. The future focus should be on networks with cross language interaction. Each language has a unique set of concepts, beliefs and expressions, which risk to be lost if all relies only on English.

So it is a dilemma. On one way English allows us to communicate worldwide, but at the same time it narrows down the potential for collaboration by simply contradicting cultural diversity. It greatly connects worldwide people, however, it is limited to small proportions of web users capable to read and write in English. I am personally in the same dilemma. I would love to blog in German — as being it my native language, my writing is much better — but I decided to blog in English to be able to network in this vast social network. Mixing languages can be possible as we have done it through the web2fordev conference blog, but even for that blog it was quite difficult to get French speaking authors involved.

Here it is an interesting statistic for the main languages in the Internet. There is a tendency towards a few strong languages. There are four languages not based on Latin characters. By the way, it took more than ten years after the Internet’s major breakthrough for ICANN to announced on the Internet Governance Forum to offer internationalized country code for top-level domains — and this just happened recently. This would mean that Chinese or Arabic letters become possible in domains. Ethan Zuckerman wrote more on that, and here, the UNESCO.

internet-languages.jpg

At last, languages are also important to protect our environment and can be decisive to preserve our biodiversity.

The links between language, culture and the environment suggest that biological, cultural and linguistic diversity should be studied together, as distinct but closely and necessarily related manifestations of the diversity of life on Earth. Researchers have referred to this new field of study as “biocultural diversity”.

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The private vs. the organizational approach to web2.0

December 13, 2007 | commentLeave a Comment

I have already written about 10 challenges for web2.0 in an organization, but this time I would like to highlight two decisive factors: Culture and a new paradigm of knowledge sharing. Furthermore, this post elaborates the differences between web2.0 in private life vs. in an organizational setting.

  1. Culture is a key factor. Blogs and wikis change communication drastically to a horizontal level and make it transparent. Workflows are given up. Openness is a key to accept ideas and ongoing changes. If employees do not dare to share, the greatest tools will end up on failure. In a way, hierarchy and power driven communication are poison for such a participative approach.
  2. Embrace the new paradigm for knowledge sharing. The collaborative web stands in contrast to many efforts trying to codify and categorize information. Making web2.0 work in an organization requires to accept knowledge in its different dimensions. Information cannot be own by only one party. Information can be sorted, interpreted and exchanged in multiple ways. Knowledge and learning evolves in a network.

To clarify the second point, I referred to David Snowden, who has mentioned this nice quote in a recent podcast. Elsua has some nice posts about the podcast.

Web2.0 is too unstructured to fit into an organizational setting, which heavily relies on codified and categorized knowledge. When you move to on a free flow of ideas what web2.0 about - then this kind of contradicts to processes and hierarchies of an organization.

All of this is much more difficult than expected in a conventionally run company or organization. In private life, this is so much easier to accept the collaborative web and to play around with. No surprise web2.0 is driven mainly by individuals, and organizations are slow followers.

A nice comparison between enterprise2.0 and web2.0, on the ‘Dif-fer-en-ti-ate blog,’ highlights the differences and the likely challenges:

web2.0 vs. enterprise2.0

  • Organisational structure: Flat vs Hierarchical–flat organisational structures encourage collaboration while hierarchical ones hinder.
  • Attitude: Sharing vs Hoarding–in your private life you share information freely without expectation of recompense, while at work, all people ask is, ‘what is in it for me?’.
  • Visibility: Anonymity vs Recognition–in Web2.0 you are one of the herd; the majority of users can assume that there is anonymity in a crowd. At work people seek recognition for their contribution as career progression can depend on it.
  • Society: Public vs Private–in Web2.0 you are able to control the information you share as well as free to create alternative persona’s, masks, behind which you can hide. In Enterprise2.0 there is no anonymity, everything you say and do online can be traced back to you.

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Changes in work life: Employee2.0

December 10, 2007 | comment1 Comment

Leila Summa has given a great presentation called “Wanted: Employee2.0 - when technologies wait for their users.” She presented it in German but here I have translate some parts. (Complete presentation). It underlines again how fast this new forms of communication and opportunities evolve, how much faster organizations need to react, and how profound the culture impact will be sooner or later.

I found especially these two slides intriguing because they describe the future development in work life, the visions of many enthusiastic people about cultural changes of the new web, and the personal effect on the employee. The first slide accurately describes the old way of work life for employee1.0. Translation starting from the top center then clockwise:

(1) material values, (2) life-time position, (3) security, (4) stability & continuity, (5) personal contacts with a friend, (6) employee as a cost factor, (7) top-down - one way communication, (8) internal communications, (9) belief in hierarchy, (10) days/hours, (11) values of liability and acceptance.

Mitarbeiter1.0

The second slide describes wonderfully how the present work life 2.0 hits the employee. Translation clockwise: (1) immaterial values, (2) manager for time/freelancing, insecurity, (3) flexibility & change, social contacts with many friends, (4) employee as a knowledge source, (5) bottom down - two way communication, (6) internal relations, (7) social network, (8) minutes/seconds, (9) values of self fulfillment.

Mitarbeiter2.0

These slides show the changes of work life and to which large extent this will be shaped by the web. It certainly shows some downsides as instant communications. Not without surprise I see more in newspapers articles with titles such as “in the future anonymity is a luxury” or “the happiness of being unattainable.” What I miss on the slides is the culture of openness, sharing and the free flow of ideas in the participatory web.

(via PR Blogger)

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Citizen journalism in Africa

December 6, 2007 | commentLeave a Comment

Flickr: verhoogen.beMost countries are far away from reaching the level that Koreans have on citizen journalism, such is the case of the famous Ohmynews: “The Net and Netizens Watchdogging Government.” A pioneer of citizen journalism was certainly indymedia.org, which got famous during the WTO protest back in 1999 in Seattle. In German language there is an interesting concept called “Gegenöffentlichkeit” (counter public); it refers to a Bertolt Brecht’s text about a two way conversation through a radio from last century 1932.

It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him.

Mark Glasser says about citizen journalism: “The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.”

The web enables citizens worldwide to engage in this citizen journalism. In Africa a lot is happening on that already. An interesting article on citizen journalism in Africa by IPS-News, “Citizen Journalism Opening Up Political Space in Africa,” describes how the spread of radio and mobile phones have changed the perception of politics and how this can lead to more transparency. Citizens can call in to radio shows and give their opinion in politics. Ghana alone got twenty new radio channels during the last 10 years. So, radio broadcasts more intensive according to the article, but also mobiles are used more and more to raise awareness about human rights violations.

Brenda Burrell said on an interview on mobileactive.org about how a group of human right activists use mobile phones to spread news of latest developments in Zimbabwe. Citzens can report over FrontlineSMS tools on human rights violations. “Our services are so popular because people are really hungry for balanced information, because they do perceive the government media to be propaganda.” FrontlineSMS was developed by Kiwanja and was also used to monitor the last election in Nigeria.

Another facet is the growing blogosphere in Africa and its contribution to critical reports about politics or social development. The ISP article sees a strength in these new blogging efforts. However, probably only minority of blogs are dealing with politics and activism. By the way, in Germany the blogosphere is hardly engaging in activism. Imagine beneficiaries from funds would give through their blogs a direct authentic feedback. However, there is also a risk that local content becomes too overwhelming. Professor Lewis Friedland says there is a trend in the US and recalled “hyper-localism“, which basically lowers the interest for national or global themes. However, in the case of Germany, I wish there would be a lot more engagement, and for Africa I am thrilled to see the growing blogoshpere on Afrigator.com.

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Notes from the web4dev conference

December 3, 2007 | comment4 Comments

Continuing with the web4dev conference in Nairobi, I wanted to add some more personal perspectives. During the conference, on the second day, twenty different workshops were offered. We, Nynke and I, gave a presentation that same day, and as with most other sessions, not many people showed up. We highlighted some lessons we had learnt at the web2fordev conference and showed different examples which will be described further in a future post. From my impressions, many tools of social media were presented, but the philosophy of openness and sharing and the implications for a new era of collaboration had not yet arrived to the web4dev conference. Still, there were promising signs such as the water wiki from UNDP.

There were a lot of interesting people, as well as some examples worth mentioning. One interesting workshop I attended was about the idea for a huge United Nations aggregator, “One Source,” collecting information from all UN organizations. All these agencies such as UNHCR, UNAIDS –just to mention a few– have different IT-systems, content management systems, etc. The idea is to develop common schemes (XML) so all information is available in RSS-Feeds. These feeds would be a independent platform for different devices and can be sorted through all the existing ontologies or taxonomies from the different UN-organisations. Quite an ambitious project, which shall be launched in January 2010. One aspect about it that I liked in particular, is that it will allow to localize feeds, which can be nicely done with mashups through yahoo pipes.

Another session, which was also very interesting, was held by Christopher Fabian from UNICEF, whom I unfortunately missed. But luckily he came to our presentation and told us a bit about his interesting projects. It is all about giving young people a voice in developing countries through the web.

These tools “include using mobile phones to collect data from young people, bootable USB sticks that turn any laptop into a radio station, and technologies to allow people with landlines or mobile phones to record stories onto the Internet.”

For that, one great example is “Our Stories,” which is a “collaborative project that leverages new digital technologies to help capture and preserve individual stories from around the world.” They had a nice video showing to many storytellers a flight around the world; unfortunately it is not on the web. Another tool, which was mainly developed with partner organizations in South Africa, is a poll feature that can be accessed and retrieved via mobile phones. The full list of the tools is here.

The first day of the discussion was very much about connectivity and the great challenges on which especially many countries in African focus in that regard. But from having different conversations with many different participants, I concluded once again that the situation varies from country to country. Whereas in some countries through competition the prices are very high, in others, such as Sudan, there are four providers competing for low prices and offering the mobile web everywhere in Sudan.

I also met Helene Karamagi and beside from exchanging some iphone hacking tips, I asked her about the ICT4D in Uganda. She gave me some interesting insights I would like to share here. From her point of view, Africa is going to face promising times when it comes to ICT4D. Her sister runs the famous Brosdi example presented on the web2fordev conference. The following three points she highlighted for Uganda:

  1. In Uganda, by next year, all local districts will be connected to the Internet. This will enable a new way for information sharing between rural and urban areas.
  2. This means that there will be a high demand for web solutions and all sorts of applications that will lead to a rise on new enterprises in that domain.
  3. Whereas in the beginning it was to NGOs, slowly the private sector is getting involved asking how to contribute to ICT4D. It is entrepreneurs, who try to develop business models for connectivity and web solution, which make profit and are potentially more sustainable.

Once again, it shows that information and communication technologies develop very different on industrialized countries. Whereas in Germany companies watch out for the best ring-tone business model, many essential, valuable and innovative ICT-solution are on the rise in developing countries. David Galipeau, who I met first on the little barcamp kind of event before the conference, underlines this development and says that it is on the eighty per cent of the south where the future innovations will come from and not the 20 per cent of the north. By the way he just started a foundation called eighty20.org.

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