7 concerns about the web in 2008

January 21, 2008 | comment

Frequent readers know I am quite enthusiastic about the social web, its potentials and cultural impact. Especially when it comes to knowledge sharing and information and communication technologies for development. However, I also have concerns and see obstacles about the participative web — its development and its divide. So as a start of 2008, I will try not to add predictions, instead some challenges.

1. Exclusion
Connectivity is not only about access but also being able to use the web with all its potentials. To express oneself with social media and to engage in social networks. The social web has a philosophy of openness and sharing, but social networks often have typical exclusive patterns. Getting the right information through feeds does not make you more inclusive. The nowadays web is more participative than ever before, but still strives along lines of exclusion. Exclusion is around having instant access, and being from the western hemisphere, having a better education and getting more attention. The front-runners are far ahead of normal internet users. My concern is that “those already rich in knowledge, information and connections may just get richer” (Charles Leadbeater).

2. Complexity
The social web opens the door for participation, but simultaneously it widens the gap between insiders and outsiders. Although the web is getting easier — just 3 clicks to a blog — the barrier for entry is still high. Not everybody is as well connected, experienced and qualified to deal with all these tools and opportunities. To understand blogs, wikis, feeds and social bookmarking takes time. I taught a relative of mine the other day the first steps on how to use the Internet and realized once again how complex the web has got. There are so many tools but so little explanation. The plain in English videos are a rarity.

3. Orientation
As great as folksonomies are and as smart as the wisdom of crowd is, it still does not give us sufficient orientation in the world wide web. The delicious startpage will make you think the web is about programmers, but what does it tell an internet newbie? To find relevant information can still be a difficult task or even within the social web takes time and resources. Social bookmarking and blogs are amazing sources of information, however, you have to find them or have the know-how to grasp their potential. Web2.0 got much more user-friendly, but a lot more has to be done to explain the opportunity for everybody. For some people, web2.0 made the web even more complex because the voices of many do not necessarily give orientation.

4. Many voices
The number of blogs is growing every day and social networks attract many new members, but there is hardly any two-way-conversation on most blogs. Millions of blogs do not have comments, thousands of facebook groups have soon after they started lost their life. The many voices often do not get as many responses. Especially when the web is used to promote social change, it is questionable to which extent this can be done over the web. Often, great stories in blogs are not read because nobody links to them. The social web has its own competition over attention and this easily will forget Kenya, Let’s Talk Scoble-gate!

5. Speed
The speed of development is breathtaking and hardly to follow. Only a minority keep up the pace. A bit more than ten years ago the only digital presence I had was on an answering machine. Nowadays new gadgets, tools and opportunities fly up daily and there is hardly any time to try the older ones, because they are bypassed by “better” solutions. That is the case of most blog posts which receive no attention after a few days. It is hardly possible to follow the speed of innovation and question whether this is necessary. Alone wikis and blogs bear a great potential and have started to be used in different contexts.

6. Information overload
From my work, I look on web2.0 from a knowledge management perspective. Blogs and wikis are surely no miracle because they simply cannot supply a real good face to face meeting and a creative brainstorming in a group. As a recent study tells that 2008 is the year of the information overload. Emails are seen as a key obstacle, but implementing blogs and wikis can also lead to the similar result. First comes the need and then maybe a web solution, but only one really fits best what is already there. Web2.0 tools can become a time waster and too little is asked about the benefit of them. Or as Bev Trayner wrote in her post, maybe less is better when it comes to online tools.

7. Filter
I am amazed about the information power gain through feeds and getting more and more decent quality information out of the web. But it is still not easy to filter, or it takes a lot of time to get qualitative information. It is still difficult to find relevance in the social web, so I can click through a world of wisdom. Language is a key challenge and also the dominance of the masses like in the old media.

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Tags: ICT4D, knowledge management, culture, language, network, openness, participation, web2.0 |

How Can Nonprofits Use Twitter? Should They Even Bother?

January 14, 2008 | comment

4 Comments

This blog post is a contribution to the Net2ThinkTank from the netsquared community. It is great community of people discussing about non-profits and technology. I can highly recommend their podcasts. When I got from Britt Bravo an email to join the discussion about above topic I was more than happy to join.

How Can Nonprofits Use Twitter? Should They Even Bother?

NO,
because twitter has too many voices and not enough responses. It is too exhausting trying to follow a conversation. The quality of exchange is simply to random. Most important, twitter is a lot about web2.0 but not so about non-profits, activism, social change, politics or the digital divide. There is not enough attention and the speed washes every message away within minutes. The message space is too limited. What could be explained in 140 characters? Is that seriously enough for a campaign or advocacy?

Still curious? Check out whether your target audience is twittering or whether twitter users are potentially interesting for your work. Search with key words in terraminds.com and find out who talks about your topics on twitter. Twitter users and their networks might be influential, although topics on civil society are not so common. Non-profits should not only send but also allow for reception on twitter.

YES,
because with twitter a real network effect comes in. Networks overlap and people engage. It is not only about joining a cause but also interacting: ask questions, engage and link. There are three ways in which twitter can be interestingly used for non-profits (more to follow later):

1) Mobilization
Twitter allows quick mobilization either internally and externally. Activists can be alerted or informed about latest developments. Twitter users are often hubs themselves and can quickly spread a message. One obvious area is for human rights. Imagine if different NGOs could form networks in twitter for information exchange, broadcast and mobilize via mobile phone.

2) Internal communications
Most non-profits are still centralized and their network is far spread. Twitter can be used to have an ongoing conversation with members in a decentralized structure. It can give more life to an organization and bring the center more to the periphery. It can help to bring in expertise from members or sympathizers. An organization asks questions, test out ideas or brainstorm about next steps with its constituency.

3) Extra organizational activism
Twitter is a lot about chitchat but also a very open network. For non-profits this can be a interesting playground to form new co-operations, act in different alliances and coordinate campaigns or protests (via mobile phones). So far, twitter is for non-profits which use it only as a channel to spread news. But what about using it to interact in a network and react to feedback? It can help to be connect different actors on a daily basis if non-profits are willing to open.

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Tags: communication, activism, civil society, human rights, mobile, Net2ThinkTank, nonprofit, twitter |

Kenyan bloggers need your support

January 14, 2008 | comment

2 Comments

Most of you probably have been following the news about Kenya lately. I was there only two months ago and had the opportunity to meet some interesting bloggers. Television was fully covering and broadcasting about the election’s campaigns at that time. When the elections took place on the 27 December, the result was promising. A surprising high figure of Kenyans participated in the elections. But soon after this, the situation turned very sadly. Manipulation of votes was manifested by EU observers and since then it has been unclear who won the presidential elections. Unfortunately, this turned into massive riots and even to a media blackout. I read somewhere that the Kenyan economy has a damage of more than one billion dollars.

Thanks to bloggers informing directly from Kenya, we had a more clear picture about what was really happening there. Things went by so quickly that I only twittered about it and hoped to get attention on it in my network. There is a twitter Kenyan news service. I am impressed by bloggers such as Daudi, who I had a chance to meet in Nairobi. They went on to the streets, reported what was — and still is — happening and documented it with photos or videos. So a week ago I wrote Daudi asking about how can I support the cause of bloggers. He replied that a donation for the Kenyan Red Cross or air time (mobile phone time) for bloggers would be best. So that way they can report from different places and collect information on what is happening around the country. A service (mashup) has been set up to document the violent incidents all over Kenya.

There is a great and easy way to donate to the brave work of the bloggers. Simply by using paypal, you can donate air time or give money to the Kenyen Red Cross. To do this go to mamamikes.com. The process is very easy and secure. Martin Kasomo from mamamikes sent me an email, and I hope I can support through this blog post the initiative:

Help Kenyans in Crisis

You watch the news; you have seen the Red Cross volunteers trying to feed the multitudes of Kenyans displaced by the post-election violence. Only Jesus could feed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. The Kenya Red Cross, however are only human, that is why they need your help to pull off this miracle. You can log on to www.mamamikes.com and buy a voucher for Kenyans in Distress. These vouchers will be used to buy much needed supplies for distribution by the Kenya Red Cross. The vouchers come in various denominations from $10 to $75.No service fee will be charged for these vouchers and ALL contributions will be distributed by the Kenya Red Cross. All we can ask is that you do whatever you can.

Here are more information about how you can help.

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Tags: activism, africa, democracy, elections, kenya, media |

When will we be freed from the intranet?

January 9, 2008 | comment

4 Comments

From a knowledge management perspective Intranets are vital but so far inefficient. On one side, it is the only place where organizational information can be decentralized access 24/7. On the other side, the web behind the firewall is mostly top-down driven and hierarchical structured. The results are that only a tiny little fraction of social networking potential is possible and that most Intranets literally hinder possibilities to share knowledge.

Failure of Intranet
Well designed and managed Intranets cover most topics from an organization or company. However, if you look at the potential of social networking, knowledge sharing and learning, the internal web is in most cases failing terribly. Intranets represent top-down communication and no personal knowledge is offered, except for some neat yellow pages. Some companies already replaced their content management system with a wiki, where employees change things as they know better. Instead, the norm is content management system and useless work flows. So, person A writes a text, person B approves it, and person C publishes it. There is a higher chance to call some colleagues to get better information than finding it in the internal web. Thus, only a tiny fraction of what is really happening in an organization is offered. One consequence is that learning in an organization happens only outside the web.

The clash of cultures
There is a clash of culture between the Intranet sympathizers and those for open horizontal knowledge sharing. At the one end, there is the belief that information needs to be authoritatively managed and has to be standardized. Intranets often represent the wish of all relevant knowledge could be codified. At the other end, there is the belief that IT knowledge management solutions have to change, and emphasis should be on social networking. The read-write or collaborative web finally offers to the employees to use what fits best their needs. This, of course, changes the picture of what is happening in an organization. Intranets are planed mostly by small teams and too little focused is on the real needs of employees. Why do not let employees create their internal web then?

It will come anyway
I think the classical Intranet — a neat little homepage with different topics, a representation of each department, some yellow pages and maybe a document management system — is history in a few years. Having the three click blog installation, easy collaboration through wikis and web based office products, and be able to connect in own networks will completely burr the lines between the Intranet and Internet. For so many work related tasks, tools are already freely available in the internet and employees will sooner or later take use of that on a massive scale. It will come anyway and it surely might be a bit chaotic to some extent. But, which meeting is consistent, purely orientated on knowledge sharing and learning in your organization? Furthermore, it is a big chance in an organizational setting because it can deepen already existing work relations in an even more trusted environment.

Downsides

Obviously, one danger is that all information, conversation and ideas are spread over the internet. How can you find out about what your colleague is doing? The internal search engines does not grasp it and again the possible transparency and exchange is lost because of too many tools in too many places.
In the beginning it does need a learning phase of how to use each tool best. The key is to bring the right mixture of tools together, which fits best to the organizational culture.
A holistic approach is important, otherwise social software leads to an information overload. Therefore filters, feeds and consistency are decisive.
Social software depends heavily on its employee’s engagement, contrary to conventional Intranets. If there is no motivation, then better stick to the old Intranet.
Web knowledge sharing can be very efficient, but it does not replace direct face to face communication.

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Tags: knowledge management, culture, enterprise2.0, intranet, learning, network, social network |

Widgets: Pimp your blog

January 6, 2008 | comment

5 Comments

This is a joint post together with Joitske Hulsebosch.

1. What is a widget?

According to wikipedia a widget is a third party item that can be embedded in a web page. Widgets are, hence, little blocks of information which can be added to a blog, mostly in the sidebar. Widgets update information, they are not static. For instance, a widget with the latest comments updates its information with every new comment. Almost any kind of information can be widgetized and offered in a blog as an additional feature. Widgets display, for example, through feeds information from external sources.

2. Why widgets are important and how they can spice up your blog

Blogs alone are nice, but with widgets you can upgrade your blog to an information portal and stimulate interactivity. Posts, comments, trackbacks and links are the key of blogs. That is how a conversation develops. Widgets extend a blog to a platform and allows to include other -dynamic- sources of information besides the blogposts you write. The variety in widgets is huge and ranges from fundraising, links, photos, videos to books, social networks and of course friends. Widgets let you integrate all the other things you do on the web.

3. Different types of widgets

The first category of widgets allows you to include information elsewhere on the internet. Your tag cloud, for instance, shows your links that are of interest to you. A flickr badge displays your photos.
The second category of widgets gives readers of your blog further information from the world wide web.
The third type of widgets are interactive such as a poll or for fundraising. For example, Chipin is a fundraising widget.
The fourth category are for advertisement. For example, your online book library with links to a book store.

4. The downside of widgets

A disadvantage of widgets is the bandwidth behind them and the fact that they can not be fully customized. Often, they are based on javascript and are updated each time through another server, when someone access your blog. When blogs have hickups, it is often related to a slowly server of one of your widgets. Many widgets include also a brand names such as flickr or feedburner, which are not easily excludable. Widgets inside blogs (e.g. wordpress) work often quicker because their content is loaded directly on your server. These widgets can also be better adjusted to your blog design.

5. Finally: the list of cool widgets

Wordpress offers a whole variety of widgets for all kind of purposes.
Offer a clear RSS subscription from feedburner or feeddigest. You can also display the number of people that have subscribed to your blog through your feedreader.
Offer a subscription to your blog by email. With email subscription capability, subscribers can now receive each blogpost in their email inbox, similar to an e-newsletter. This is very important for users who are not used to RSS readers or have low bandwidth. This is offered by feedburner or feedblitz.com.
Share your photos via your blog. If you have photos on flickr, you can display them on your blog by using a flickr badge. You can find the steps here.
If you want to show your photos in combination with a world map, you can use tripper map. It allows you to display your flickr photoset in combination with a world map.
Display recent comments in the sidebar of your blog. Often, readers may not click on the comment section. By displaying the comments in the sidebar, readers can see where and what people have commented. For blogger, you can find a widget here: http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2007/03/recent-comments.html. For wordpress, you can find the process described here: http://freepressblog.org/wordpress-plugins-2/wordpress-recent-comments-plugin-widget/
Show your readers by using mybloglog. Readers can sign up and their photos will be displayed.
Tell your readers what you are doing right now by inserting a twitter widget. If you are already twittering, you can display your twitters on your blog.
Show the blogs that you are reading yourself. That may give people an impression of the kind of topics you like, and may point them to new blogs they may not know. If you are using bloglines, it is possible to display your public bloglist on your blog (called blogroll).
Insert any interesting RSS feed. You may produce a feed yourself using a unique tag and you can display it on your blog by using services like feedostyle; feedzilla; or this. Superglu will allow you to gather content from various places and combine it.
Display your top tags used on your blog with the Top Tags Widget. It will display your tags in a beautiful cloud formation (or the top tags of any blog.) By showing this, readers will know what you are writing about, and can click on one of the tags to access a category of readings. Blogger allows you to display your categories in the sidebar, which has a similar function, even though it is not displayed in a tagcloud.
Or display your del.icio.us tags on your blog.
Ask readers for feedback on your blog or any important issue by using a poll.
Ask readers to TELL you what they think by using an Odeo widget (via Beth Kanter)
In case you have a you tube channel, you can use a widget to display your videos.
Raise funds with a widget using ChipIn.
Or display your LinkedIn profile.