David Wilcox asked me on Quora this question, which I also want to publish as a response here to discuss the topic further. Would be great to get some more thoughts on that topic from you. I imagine we can learn a lot from digital inclusion in Africa. Here are some points:

The art of improvisation

When it comes to access, the innovation under constraints is amazing in Africa. Look, for example, how the challenge of energy supply has been greatly mastered. I think that in Europe we address inclusion only from few angles and should be more creative. We could focus a lot more on mobile phones and offer real needed services even through SMS. Suddenly, we can potentially reach over 90% of people, but most important, we need to play a lot more with technology and hack it where we can. A lot is happening in this regard in the UK, on the contrary Germany, where technological skepticism is still hampering innovations, or where one faces legal implications when offering open wifi.

I like these to posts very much:

• Innovation from Constraint by Ethan Zuckerman
• If It Works in Africa, It Will Work Anywhere by Erik Hersman

However, to me one of the biggest challenges is media competency, and not only in Germany but in the rest of the world.

Service models

If we have not reached enough people through the Internet, it might be that most services do not address a real need and do not offer sufficient help. Isn’t the Internet in Europe largely focused towards the middle class? Where are web solutions or services focused on marginal groups? Here information literacy is the key: “… empower people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals” UNESCO

I wish there would be more solutions such as “Rate my Prison“ from the first social innovation camp or or “My Police“. Unfortunately “Rate my Prison” seem not to have been developed further.

Look at the public sector for example and see how little is offered here in Germany. There is a city website, but hardly any online services. On the other hand, Fixmystreet is still a rare exception. The whole world of apps unleashes here a new creativity, but if you really want to get inspired for future mobile services, you need to look at Africa. In Africa solutions such as Farmer’s friend (SMS price information) attempt to reach also poor people in remote areas. Where are such business models in Europe?

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Let’s say one day you arrive at work – a mainly knowledge-driven organization, such as a consultancy, where you don’t have an office, not even a position, nor a particular function. So to start your day, you first get a selection of all projects, ideas and problems that your organization is dealing with at the moment.

Half of your working day is already subscribed to ongoing projects, and the other half you could jump into something new. You look at various open tasks, questions, ideas or requests for solutions – all these items have a chronology of contributions and interactions. You can see what has been already done and what is needed.  You find an interesting challenge, estimate the working time and send an invitation to a colleague, who has the skills and might be interested on working together on it.

Now, you have 20% of the day left. You take a look in your competence section and see several questions and help requests for topics. You pick a few tasks, which you can solve quickly and teach others how to do it themselves next time. The daily work plan is done and you go on to a workspace, where colleagues are gathered to work on your main project.

By the way, instead of having a boss, you have different scores you give yourself on your work performance. You might prefer the creativity score, which gives you a lot of time to find solutions and to push for innovations. Or you focus your work on your teaching score, which is evaluated by your colleagues. Or you pick another score, which fits best your working style. And to top it all, strategies do not exist either. This is done by a prediction market.

Is that absurd?

Quora also has an interesting solution to find information from within the ocean of questions. Words of questions become key words (tags), which are then associated with similar questions and clustered under one topic. Imagine such a thing in an organization. You would create organically an organizational wisdom. Why cannot whole projects be organized in such a fashion?

Of course that nice set of features does not automatically lead us to the utopian first part, but maybe it can contribute to it. If we look at the incredible inefficient and non-creative problem solutions capacities of organizations and companies and can overcome the cultural resistance, such open collaboration form would bring us closer to the utopian first part, where you work what you really want.

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At the Socialcamp in Berlin last weekend, a session dealt with “social business 2.0,” which turned out to be an intense and inspiring discussion on open innovation for appropriate technology through crowdsourcing – a sentence with many buzzwords. Essentially, many questions were raised, but among those were: How can innovative solutions and their implementation be coordinated through the web? And, what is the role of the web and which are its limitations? I hope this post may trigger some answers in the comments!

Appropriate technology development through the web?

Photo by Todd Huffman (CC BY 2.0)

A group of people who met over at the Betterplace platform – a German peer-to-peer aid platform –  and whom did not know each other before, founded a project request to build an new innovative toilet waste water system. Of course, there are many of such solutions out there already, but in their case, the group has no technical skilled members and it, therefore, seeked for people with a technical solution to help them out. I keep the description rather short, because the main discussion was more about the different dimensions of crowdsourcing. So, how such a complex, technical advanced project can be done through the web?

Definition of Appropriate Technology according to Wikipedia:
“Appropriate technology is technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social and economical aspects of the community it is intended for.”
And, according to Oikos:
“Appropriate Technology is technology that creates minimal environmental impact while serving basic human needs. Uses the simplest level of technology that can effectively achieve the intended purpose in a particular location.”

Crowdsourcing vs. Community building
It seems that, within the discussion, the term crowdsourcing is understood very differently. Can you even crowdsource a technical solution? Can you mobilize a crowd of engineers or do you need a community? Dan Woods asks “Does crowdsourcing exist as it is popularly conceived?” and replies “Yes, it does, but it doesn’t have anything to do with innovation.”

So I think you need to have a community involved in such a project, otherwise how could you motivate people to participate and evaluate such a solution voluntarily?

But then again, we realized we focused too much on the solution and too little on implementation. One needs to focus on the implementation and on what the people who are using it really want. There is the famous failure of the solar cooker, which led to eye injury from its parabolic antenna and ignored that what people wanted was to cook in the evenings.

But, for appropriate technology aren’t the people living in the local context the real experts? How can a bridge be build between scientist and local practitioners?
There are interesting platforms, which can be used in many different ways to use the web for innovation:

• Appropedia is a site for collaborative solutions in sustainability, poverty reduction and international development.
• Nabuur, where volunteers worldwide help to find solutions for villages.
• Scientist without borders
• Innocentive, a platform to find scientific solutions with a for-profit purpose.
• Social Innovation Camp is an experiment in using social technology for social change

Connecting the local and global: Local vs. global knowledge
These four initiatives have very different approaches and do not necessarily aim to open innovation. Who owns the solution and who decides for the solution to be implemented? The discussion goes onto whether it is possible for the technical part of the solution to separate the solution in different parts? Or would that mean competition? But what if each engineer has different solutions, then which one should be taken? Clearly, you need expert knowledge, but it is even more important for such a project to learn together, on the path for a such a solution and to be open to all problems and feedback.

So, peer-to-peer aid has to do a lot with peer-to-peer learning. But to be inclusive is quite tricky as many rural areas in developing countries have no easy access. There is an interesting initiative by Stephan Wolak to make this link through mobile phones and connect the local to the global.
Do you know any more examples? What is your perspective for the potentials and limitations of such crowdsourcing efforts for open innovation?

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The first days have passed by at the the Virtual Forum “Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas” and it has triggered some interesting discussions. One thread is around innovations and mobile phones. Being it software or ideas to extend the usage of the all purpose tools, cutting edge innovations are not coming from high income countries, where the high promises of further usage of mobile phones were not taken by its users.

Looking at Europe during its last years many offers have not been taken up. Sure blackberries are all over the place pushing for email interaction on your phone, or at the most, to buy a train ticket via mobile phone. But how further has the mobile been used for other purposes? Not much. Interestingly, users seem to have not been able to grasp all its advantages for the past years – with the exception of ring-tones, maybe. I believe that the multiple options for communication channels can make a difference; European users are to some extend saturated and do not see a big benefit in most offers. For example, during European Championships (soccer), the games were offered via mobile phones, but only a minority were interested.

This happens completely differently in developing countries, where people with a mobile phone are reachable in the remotest areas, where not even sufficient electricity might exist. Mobile phones, with their offer to communicate from anywhere and send short messages, are a big jump forward. Fascinating to see, it does not stop there, particularly in Africa mobile phones unleash various innovations. Many of them show, how they can fill the gap, where nothing was existing before and that’s why they work more successfuly than in Europe. Here are some examples:

• Cell Bazaar (Market in your pocket), where you can send and receive small advertisements for selling and buying stuff. All needed is just an SMS function.
• The EPROM project in Kenya coaches programmers who come up with promising applications such as  mobile mapping in Kenya.
• Afrigadget reports about a mobile phone based auto security system
• SMS and Web 2.0 for Mumbai Early Warning/Response Project
• SMS based news and information service in Sri Lanka for human rights monitoring, reporting and advocacy

However, in my opinion, a new phase is starting with the iPhone. For the first time people in masses download applications to use their phones for all kinds of purposes, such as a pocket personal computer. As I wrote here, the mobile social network is in this regard very promising, because it extends potential collaborations to many more people, who do not have PC based access to the web. Some interesting applications are already out there: Tatango, Jyngle or Radioactive. Hat tip to Drew Cogbill.

I imagine GPS will become another key future, but also the mobile phone as a broadcasting tool and a sensor-rich device. By the way the Egyptian government just forbid GPS to cut down grassroot usage of it. Not every government seems happy about their citizens having such a powerful tool in their hands.

I anticipate that mobile phones will unleash a lot more disruptive innovations than the PC because since its beginnings has been mostly based on open operations systems and has been much more user-centred, and allows for more options to adapt, hack and apply it. “These innovations will only increase in the future, as mobile phones become the linchpin for greater economic development.“

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Most of my readers know how enthusiastic I am about the potential that Internet has; being this either social web, social media, web2.0 or however you want to name it. But if I look back at what has happened in the development field during the last year, I have to say that frankly I am quite disappointed about how little has been happening. I expected the disruptive potential to be more exploited. Particularly in development organizations hardly anything has changed, and the wave of open networks, transparency or the two way conversation is rather a ripple.

Little innovation from development organizations
I remember the participants’ enthusiasm during last year’s web2fordev conference in Rome and I have also seen some interesting initiatives since, but the strong push towards taking advantage of the potential is not there. Critically, you can say that yes, the world bank has been playing a little bit around with blogs, UNHCR celebrates itself with Google map for fundraising, and Eldis has now a community, as well as Development Gateway has now ratings for articles, but here, in Germany, I cannot even find one convincing example from dozens of organizations working in the development field. But I know these are at least some first steps.

What are the reasons?
I think the challenges especially within the organizational context are multi fold. Just to name a few:

• Technical challenges: Almost all development organizations rely on software systems, which do not offer social media tools. Sharepoint is just one example of how it will never work to have an open knowledge sharing environment.
• Being it the communication department, the IT or any other departments – many share their refusal to a participative web. Staff should be offered to decision themselves what to published and which tools to use. No way! – for some people the social web scenario is still a nightmare.
• It is not on their screens! Most key players or management teams have not yet understood the potential of the web in total, although development organizations work internationally and engage in numerous networks. The Internet is still seen as a necessary evil. Generation gap?
• No real commitment for donor harmonization. One key pillar of aid effectiveness should be to exchange knowledge as open and transparent as possible. There are hardly any attempts to open data resources between organizations and for the public domain. Most content is still copyright, although it is for non-profit.
• Adaptation: It simply takes much more time. The learning curve of organization all together is simply really slow. The slower the bigger the organizations are.
• Open knowledge sharing is still not high on the agenda. Information silos are common and knowledge is kept closed north and south of the development field.
• The fear and distress to engage online, plus information overload and too little training for staff to show the potential to publish and exchange knowledge in networks.
• Too little interest to engage in dialogue and recognize the importance of local knowledge. User-generated content means that I also am able to listen as an organization.

What could be different?
A will to go public with the work, knowledge and problems of development organizations. Instead, they sat around in Ghana for aid effectiveness and have achieved so little. One step would be to acknowledge that problems are too complex, open channels of organization and use new ways to work together. Being it a Wikipedia for development or different sub themes such as Water wiki. But knowledge is preserved and kept in organizations. Information sources should be combined from different perspectives, instead, each organizations has its own websites. There is not even an attempt to combine data resources between bigger organizations. If you look for instance, the wisdom of crowd potential is not yet exploited. For project development or problem solution, hardly anything has been tested or experimented. In recent years amazing market and exchange places in all kinds of fields have been established, but the development sector still offers very little.  I will elaborate that further in another post.

An explanation
In my opinion the easiest explanation is that the social innovation within or through the web flourishes best in open autonomous environments. This can be rarely offered in an organizational context. If you look at the most fascinating projects and initiatives of the last year, since the web2fordev conference, you will see that they are all grass root driven – mobile phones in Africa, human rights issues, citizen journalism, mashups or networks for development. So I wonder what could then be the role of development organizations to participate in the social innovation? How do you think web2.0 in development organizations will progress? Do you agree with the above statement or was I too critical?

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Let’s face it, when you deal with knowledge sharing in an organization, it becomes quickly obvious that most knowledge is shared personally, face-to-face over the telephone or in the cafeteria. In a personal conversation people can describe issues in length, reply to questions and tell the “real” story. Formal meetings often do not give space for vibrant discussions and are often not the forum to describe the pros and cons. Although by listening to the experiences of others, best learning can be achieved.

An ordinary organization has usually a top-down controlled Intranet, where the different departments add their contributions. Sometimes there is even a forum, but in many cases hardly used at all — it is somewhere hidden or a hassle to access. The organizational life is happening somewhere else and employees on a business trip or in a different branch are cut off.

Social software offers at least three new ways for organization to benefit from:

1. To get a picture of what is really happening in an organization. What are the major topics? What is it what staff discusses and cares about? Not all is going to be public, but a lot more than a top-down Intranet or internal communication by the corporate communication department. Is your organization ready for that?
2. To bring people with same interests together without typing with your numb finger over the telephone. Personal employee’s pages, such as yellow pages, can be easily linked through common key words (tags) by interests, competencies, blog posts, projects on wiki pages etc. Check your del.icio.us (a social bookmarking site) or this video and browse through it and see yourself how quickly you find like-minded people. On delicious it is often anonymous, but in an organization it is all linked to employees and their expertise, their projects and questions. Check out 20 things to do on a social network in the office.
3. To increase productivity and emphasize innovation. To imagine employees to network on a peer-to-peer basis. A transparent open network will not only brings synergies and avoids to reinvention of the wheel, but also offers innovations. Like-minded people collaborate on their preferred topics. Staff with similar ideas find each other or new ideas arose out of discussions between people who have different departments.

Why should they do it? It certainly needs transparency and trust but the benefit and mutual gain can come quickly. But this is of course a nightmare scenario to all those employees, who treat knowledge as power. Because in this kind of open horizontal community you are what you share!

How to start?

Here are some rather bottom-up approaches:

• Start a collaborative tagging experiment over del.icio.us with colleagues to see how easy the sharing of valuable information can be, or open up a room on friendfeed to discuss right away resources.
• Use external tools for your team to make project management easier. One example could be a blog for your project’s history, milestones and other management tasks.
• Connect with colleagues through existing social networks such as Xing, Linkedin or Facebook and use it for exchange.
• Extend informal activities on the web and make other colleagues be aware of it: bulletin board, liftsharing etc.
• As Joitske commented on my first blog post, you can address a specific problem and use social media for an open transparent discussion.

This is a blog post series about my experiences on web2.0 in an organization, consisting of at least 26 different blog posts highlighting potentials and challenges and focusing on success factors. Please feel free to comment, contact me for further information and/or let me know which other topics within this context you would be interested on.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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