NGO2.0 is all about learning and ideas (2)

April 4, 2008

As I have previously argued in a recent post, many NGOs have quite conventional organizing forms, facing the challenge of openness and often not founding a way to deal with open networks and a two way conversation. A key step to openness and different understanding of roles such as an organization, its members and stakeholders comes from a cultural shift towards learning.

NGO as learning organizations

Mariëtte Heres wrote an interesting article called “Aid is a knowledge industry.” She emphasizes on the importance of knowledge sharing and learning within and between NGOs and states that, “although NGOs are taking more interest in knowledge management, they have so far failed to recognize that they are part of a knowledge industry, of which the delivery of goods and services is only a part.”

If an NGO wants to become a learning organization, it is important that – in addition to acquiring substantive knowledge – it learns more about learning. ‘You need a learning attitude in this sector. And if you want to learn, you have to experiment. Even if the experiment is a failure, you still learn from it. Knowledge is the result of reflection’.

The ICCO alliance is in this regard quite progressive. It established publicly available “Learning and Sharing Spaces.” This ambitious attempt for a learning organization results in better understanding and innovation through transparency.

Open source everything

Mark Surman marks in his post, “Open, philanthropy and a theory of change,” a step further and argues for radical transparency, which “means opening up not only your yearly books, but also openly sharing your planning, learning and relationships as you go along.” In an inspiring visualization he describes his vision for an open knowledge society filled with possibilities. All organizational boundaries diminish — a key is to listen, learn and evolve with the community. The result is open philanthropy with a constant flow of ideas.

How does social software get in an organization?

February 25, 2008

In older days, new software and applications came to an organization via the IT department. Nowadays, it is easier for social software to reach organizations in different ways because no firewall can stop it. To keep social software and its potential for knowledge sharing behind the firewall it is a contradiction.

Social software arrives in an organization in many different ways. Traditionally, it used to be installed software, where the desktop was — or still is — protected to prevent any misuse. As the web becomes a platform, applications are more and more web based. For example, a whole office suite can be accessed online. Calendars, project management and to-do lists are also offered for free. And of course blogs, wikis and social networks are just one click away. Clearly this changes the role of the IT department.

Dennis D. McDonald elaborates the different adoption models social media. He sees four different models in which social media and social networking are taken up by organizations:

  • Top down
    In the “top down” model organization’s leaders implement and lead the adoption of tools and techniques such as blogs, wikis, social networking systems, shared bookmarks, and podcasting.
  • Bottom up
    In the “bottom up” model the workers start blogging, using wikis and social networking systems to advance their jobs.
  • Inside out
    This is a variation of “bottom up,” only this time the tools are adopted internally by the organization and their usage spills over into external markets, members, or customers of the organization.
  • Outside in
    In this model the adoption of social media and social networking by the marketplace progresses to a point where the organization can no longer ignore it, especially if usage by competitors starts to become public.

But why is it interesting to know how it happens?

  1. It says a lot about the organizational culture.
  2. It lets you connect it better to existing web solutions.
  3. Too many different social software not connected nor taken with enough care will lead to another information overload and frustration.
  4. Social media needs its audience and that can flourish itself in an organizational environment as long as people are aware of it.

Top down

It has its advantages because tools are available right in the organization and resources are given to promote them. However, there are not necessarily adopted as easily because it does not prove an added value per se. Especially, focusing purely on a tool can become easily a dead end. More important to motivate engagement in the dialogue in order to experiment is a key, and that is much easier with the support of the management. However, the top down approach can only be a trigger or role model, but success evolves through a horizontal community.

Bottom up

It is the most obvious way and what is happening in many cases. Facebook is, for example, a mixture of private and professional contacts. But can a social network be build informally through a web in an organization? Employees can easily experiment with blogs out in a secure place for free. The time until a specific software is on every desktop can take ages. In contrast, web tools are a click away and they are getting better everyday. This “guerilla method” has also its disadvantages that the more people there are, the more different tools are used. Organizational knowledge is not linked and dispersed over the net. It is also questionable whether it reaches a lot of colleagues.

Inside out
This is, however, an great attempt for an open network, where the organization can benefit best from internal and external knowledge. Few companies or organizations are doing this as far as I know. But until today the potential is not used if you look at social network, which marginal or not, are all grasped by an Intranet. I can think of Sun Microsystems. This approach blurs the boundaries, but leads to improved learning and innovation. That is what the book “Wikinomics” is all about. The resistance, especially from the management to it, is surely the strongest for many different reasons. This approach leads, however, to interesting debates about whether information has to be confidential and what should be open for sharing.

Outside in
This is happening still very rarely. Surely blogs and wikis are tested in many organizations. However the outside pressure on organizations is in my opinion still low, because not enough organizations have proven the success of advantage of social software. However Larry Huston gave an interesting interview Innovation Networks: Looking for Ideas Outside the Company.

I don’t believe we’re at a tipping point yet, but I think, in the future, the companies that identify those assets outside and begin to build relationships with them have a real shot at building a competitive advantage and preferential relationships.

Often, employees have to find their own way to get all sort of information out from the web. A comprehensive feed subscription would be needed to deliver employees with good and relevant information available.

How does web2.0 arrive in your organization? What are the obstacles before it flourishes? Can you see the different ways it happens? Which key success factors are embraced by an organization and its members?

Pitfalls of micro blogging via Twitter

November 25, 2007

In my last post I described the potential for social networks by tweets and statuses, but now I would like to add to it some links of interesting blog posts about Twitter and its potential. There is, for example, Nancy White, collecting collaboration stories over Twitter. Another interesting post from Marshall Kirkpatrick, “Why Twitter pays my rent,” describes how you can follow on Twitter in real time what is happening in the world wide web. Lastly, Caroline Middlebrook wrote a nice Twitter guide.

However, in this post I also intend to highlight some possible pitfalls for micro-blogging, how Facebook statuses and Twitter messages are also called. Developments are so fast that reflection of these tools is important, and even though  I risk some culture pessimism, I pointed some out:

  • Quality
    Some things can be expressed through statuses, but is the outcome really needed information? Is it worth the effort to read all these messages?
  • Micro-content
    In 140 characters a lot can be said, but surely nothing thoroughly elaborated and roughly in depth. Can this micro-content help in terms of knowledge sharing or learning? Micro-content is rather vague, or not always precise or self explanatory.
  • Attention
    Clearly, this kind of information needs another attention and might even pressure for more multitasking and loss of concentration. It is another step to blur the border between being online and offline.
  • Time consuming
    The question here is whether it is more efficient to email or add another piece to the information overload. Or is it really an own channel for communication?
  • Privacy
    There is without a doubt a privacy issue of how much you want to let others know about yourself. Being virtually connected does not mean you want to share so much of your privacy.  How can one compromise with the dilemma of being public and private at the same time?
  • Time span
    Mostly, there is only a certain window of reception for a message before it is gone. It is a bit like blog posts which get attention the first few days and then they are often forgotten.
  • Engagement
    It needs a certain size of network and engagement from it to really get feedbacks. Does micro-blogging really lead to exchange or are there just many voices and no responses?
  • The zero sum game of communication
    The time used on these tools is spent less on others. On Skype chats or Twitter, communication is divided into small bits, what makes it even more difficult to get the whole picture.

10 reasons why statuses and tweets are a key for social networks

November 19, 2007

For the past weeks I have been experimenting with Twitter and Facebook. I have checked out the value of statuses (Facebook) and tweets (Twitter) over these two social network tools. For those of you who do not know, Facebook is a social network platform which lets one not only to add friends and content, but also add an actual status. Equal to Twitter, it Twitter Poster allows only a limited number of characters and it is often used to express emotions, things you do, or raise questions. I wrote some while ago a post questioning whether Twitter makes sense or not? I have to say I have changed my opinion at a certain extent and now I believe Twitter and statuses can really enhance your social network experience.

Facebook and Twitter both have some great incentives but also some downfalls. Where does the network value lies? For Twitter, in the beginning I wondered why exchanging short 140 character messages is of any good. So I started using the two tools during the last weeks and concentrated on information exchange and sharing. I also subscribed via RSS to the statuses of my friends in Facebook, and was quite surprised about their activities. This leads to 10 reasons why statuses and tweets are a key for social networks:

  1. Satisfaction
    It fits perfect to most people’s desire to express their thoughts and to get a response. For example, it is interesting how many people sooner or later start updating their statuses in Facebook. To write short messages is inviting.
  2. Closeness
    Statuses let you follow what your network feels, thinks, works or simply wants to know. Different to blogs or entries in forums, it is rather informal and shows moods or curiosity and some times even anger. It is an important channel for people working intensively on the web, and more and more people will eventually do so.
  3. Collaboration
    It opens new venues for small collaboration and can still support existing collaboration because it is an asynchronous and synchronous form of communication.
  4. Openness
    In Twitterer people invite each other rather easy. Everybody can be addressed; a short conversations can develop and an answer might be there in minutes.
  5. Sharing
    You can quickly share links, information or quotes in a quick way. A request is send out by on one click to a whole network and opens a channel for other types of communication to conventional ones such as email etc.
  6. Change
    Alexandra Samuel has a nice post about how twitter and statuses can promote collective action for change.
  7. Connectedness
    Through statuses you find out a lot about your peers and find overlapping interests. Tweets can connect people and topics which otherwise would not be possible that easily. Distanced friends or colleagues in the next room read your thoughts or know what your work on.
  8. Network effect
    Its network effect comes from the overlapping of the connected people. In Twitter a message can be transmitted that way from one network of people to another and can reach their audience quickly and directly.
  9. Mobile
     This micro-blogging can be followed from everywhere on the go. It connects you with your social network or group wherever you are.
  10. Pull not push
    Other than email, it is up to you, the participant, to read it or leave it. As long as some peers are following and reading, there is always a potential answer or reaction.

To conclude, statuses and instant communication through twitter build a closer social network. It enables real synchronous peer to peer exchange and has decisive network value if it is used for real sharing. It clearly shows how slowly email is being replaced by instant communication (e.g. Skype, Twitter etc.). Together with the mobile phone I think it will be another step to make the web independent from the PC. In my opinion, it can be perfectly used to sustain and stimulate a social network because it is a pull-method. Every user decide when to engage and when not to, but when the network is big enough somebody will respond and the network effects will raise in real time. It is basically another evolution of communication, whether we like it or not. Next post I will highlight the downsides.

Web2.0, knowledge sharing and IT departments

October 17, 2007

Here in Germany, Web2.0 is in everybody’s mouth. Newspapers have been reporting about it lately, and some things are around the buzz word–blogs, wikis, social networks, wikipedia, facebook or youtube, get more and more attention. Whereas in the first wave most people wondered where and when will the next cool start-up spring up. The debate went on whether blogs are a threat to media or not. The wikipedia phenomenon brought finally the knowledge and collaboration dimension of web2.0 to the spotlight.

Ironically, in my opinion, the IT departments–responsible still–have often not taken the participative web as a top priority. And I wonder whether this is different elsewhere. By the way, a similar phenomenon is seen in the knowledge management arena. In relevant magazines, web2.0 and its potential for knowledge sharing and learning has hit the headlines this Summer. However, not many blogs are even around (Please notify me if you know some). One exception is Martin Röll, who wrote very early, albeit he stopped his blog, about knowledge sharing through blogs. Three other nice blogs are zungu.net, frogpond.de and Wissensmanagement2.0.

Going back to the topic, I wonder why many IT-specialists do not show a wider interest in web2.0 and share some enthusiasm. Here are some assumptions:

  • IT-experts know by own experience that web2.0 is just another approach, and doubt the hype around it.
  • IT-experts are bored of the triviality of this kind of software such as blogs and wikis.
  • IT-departments completely underestimate the effects for web2.0 software.
  • Web2.0 is seen secondary as technological and it is much more about culture, communication and commitment (3C)

“Like it or not, Web 2.0 is coming,” says Lisa Hoover in the context of enterprise2.0, and this different tools will be used in organizations. Euan agrees by stating: The 100% guaranteed easiest way to do Enterprise 2.0? DO NOTHING. It strikes me to see how many people individually already use web2.0 tools such as blogs or wikis, or they arrange meetings with doodle, use their own desktop sharing and collaborate over google docs. And this all goes easily around the firewall because it is all browser-based. Nevertheless, some obstacles remain as Bev Trayner describes in her blog post Web2.0 is a long way from people at work.

I think it is important to grasp the potential of collaboration and to prove it can be a reduction of information overload and leverage new forms of collaboration. However, from a knowledge management perspective, it is also critical because of how can we share information, when it is distributed over the web. How can it be linked and searched from the intranet? Nevertheless, I am still puzzled about the reluctance towards web2.0 even though it can become a decisive and comparative advantage, being it internally for communication or externally to flourish cooperation.

web2fordev conference impressions (1)

September 29, 2007

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.

Few steps to a powerful social software application

September 8, 2007

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.

Does Twitter make sense?

August 19, 2007

To begin with, I have to say, I am not a Twitter user. I have signed up for an account but have not used it at all. I, personally, prefer tools such as Skype. But still, I am willing to be convinced that it does bring an advantage for personal use. I imagine it can be very useful, though, so far, it seems to me another ‘great time consuming application.’ I wonder whether it is really an advantage to be hyperconnected. “Like any good pusher, services like Twitter don’t answer existing needs; they create new ones and then fill them. (Times)” I sense it speeds up the anyway fast communication and information sharing through the web. However, I also imagine it can be an application for new senseful forms of communication, activism and networking, especially with its connection to the mobile phone.
Given that assumption, I collected the following links about twitter:

These articles show how Twitter can be used in all sorts of ways, such as to allow fast messaging and alert a network. It seems good to give notice and to feel connected. It can be an important tool for activism because it pings every member of a network and it is more personal and directed than blogs. I imagine also twittervision version for human rights worldwide or environmental violations in a region.

An Email alternative: four dimension of feeds (RSS) in organizations

August 10, 2007

To continue with my post “What is enterprise2.0,” I wrote a case study for organizational blogging. Inspired by the posts from EnterpriseRSS, Paul Dunay and Splash Cast, rss.jpgI want to focus this time on RSS and feeds. In my opinion feeds can make a decisive difference in getting the right information at the right time in the right place, and can also reduce the email overload. As we still have to wait for the semantic web, RSS offers great potential for organizations in the following four dimensions:

  1. Transmitter: Don’t email it. RSS it. Feeds deliver the latest information from themes and projects: Discussions in group blogs, solutions for problems in personal blogs, the status of documentation in wiki, interesting website through subscribed links feed, etc. This information is transparently available, showing organization wide activities otherwise hidden in email boxes. It is possible to get information from all kinds of projects inside an organization, and knowledge creation can be seen through news tickers from everybody’s browser.
  2. Filter: Contrary to email push technology, feeds are a pull technology. One can decide by himself what to follow and escape the email flood. Some feeds are binding, such is the case of the department protocol or the follow-up of a milestone for a project; but most feeds can be subscribed by interest. Project steps can be easily monitored, links in a specific community of practice exchanged, or discussions can be followed. With evaluation tools such as AideRSS, valuable and most discussed content can be filtered.
  3. Overview: Imagine that an intranet homepage would be like a feed aggregator. A look on the page shows exactly what is happening right in that moment in the whole organization. A feed aggregator would present all kind of feeds sorted by topic, projects, departments, date etc. Each topic or bigger projects have their own aggregator and can be browsed through tagclouds in every direction to find quickly a topic. Knowledge creation and information exchange can be followed from anywhere in the organization. Information does not have to be pushed into singly categories and limited databases.
  4. Mashup: Like Yahoo pipes presented a while ago, these feeds can be easily combinable. Project developments are connected to a map application so one can see geographically where about and who it’s own organization is dealing with or discuss about it. In a multilingual organization, feeds can be redirected through translation services. Every employee can build his own aggregator and can mix data for his individual purpose.

No doubt this approach cannot be implemented easily. The problem is not technological, but it does need an open organizational culture. It does shift vertical to horizontal communication. Clearly, there can be numerous obstacles listed. The transparency must not always be in the interest of the management. It demands from the staff a great capacity to absorb all this feeds, sort, process, and digest them. Or how David Weiberger says it: “The task of knowing is no longer to see the simple. It is to swim in the complex.” Another obstacle are feed-readers, which are until now very basic and have to be further developed to easy sorting, archiving (tagging) and so forth.

10 lessons learnt from ICT4D

August 5, 2007

Thanks to netnotwired on flickrInformation and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) is still a fairly new theme in the development arena. Throughout the years ICT4D has diversified in many different sub-themes such as e-governance, e-agriculture, e-health, education, etc. Although there have been successful stories, the high hopes had often not been realized in many projects. Many initiatives did not work out and so many projects failed to establish a solid and sustainable approach for ICT4D. The reasons are multifold and some learnt lessons are the following:

  1. ICT4D has been and still is narrowly focused on infrastructure.
  2. Underestimation for the importance of training, qualification, and the different dimensions of connectivity.
  3. ICT4D can only successful if it is a mean and not the end itself.
  4. Many projects were not orientated on the needs. The benefit of ICT output remained often unclear.
  5. ICT4D projects were often not seen from a holistic perspective. Many projects lacked a sustainable concept.
  6. Just to offer information (e.g. websites or databases) leads to nothing when people do not see a benefit in it.
  7. ICT4D has social, cultural, political and economical dimensions. In that regard technology is only one part.
  8. Many experiments could have been avoided if previous experiences were considered (e.g. rural radios).
  9. ICT4D works most successfully when its users take over it, creating and changing technology to their needs.
  10. Lastly the ICT4D has only a fragmenting approach of sharing knowledge and learning experiences. Ironically, most ICT4D initiatives are not linked together - the potential of the web has not been bailed.

A major challenge, however, is the lack of proven impact for ICT in development. That’s why the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development devoted, lately, an own website to this challenge. The business sector has achieved significantly more, as the success of mobile phones shows. The grameen phone campaign has proven its impact to tackle poverty; which computers, networks and the Internet did not achieve in a decade. A tragic example are telecentres or Internet cafes, which in Africa now often go bankrupt because people rather spend money on their mobile phones.

The market-driven mobile phone phenomenon stood out amidst many donor-driven ‘pilot’ projects that had either collapsed or never delivered the promise, says Nalaka Gunawardene therefore in a critical summary of the first years of ICT4D.

But is it that critical when the web shows every day what is possible, and how sheer connectedness has its impact on development? Many countries have achieved important steps such as India’s approach to e-governance or Venezuela’s results of switching to free and open source software. However, very decisive, from my point of view, will be web2.0, the social web, or the collaborative web. Why is that; I will answer on my next post.

Connect lessons learnt through tagging

July 25, 2007

Yesterday, I read a blog post about “How do you convince people to share failures?” and I also heard about an interesting lessons learnt website project which was implemented some years ago.

In that project station masters were asked to give regular information about their stations such as statistics. Secondly to list problems and challenges throughout the last years. They were asked to describe how they tackled the problems. What were the failures and the success? This information combined with some criteria were filled to a database. With that every station master could find colleagues with similar problems and could contact them.

Taken from Flickr by Trooper3d (CC)To me, it seems like a simply mechanism with a great result. A knowledge sharing tool which concentrates on learning experiences and connects people and knowledge.
But how would you do this nowadays in the realm of web2.0? Two questions came up to my mind:

  • Does web2.0 really help us exchange lessons learnt in such an effective manner?
  • Can tagging be the right way to find each others lesson learnt easier?

Web2.0 and lesson learnt
I have my doubts whether web2.0 goes this far yet to connect the right people with same problems in such an effective way. Social network tools give you features such as recommendations, feedbacks and a whole range of perspectives. But is that all you are looking for in that moment? In the best case, you can have a community of practice where you can address your questions. Valuable experiences are still hidden behind numerous links, which I can identify easier with social bookmarking, but still have to hope that Google will deliver me good results.

Tagging
In my opinion tagging is very powerful, but often underestimated, because it gives us relevance. Look at a tag-cloud and imagine you can click through endless relevant sub-tag-clouds. You can navigate through an ocean of wisdom, connecting knowledge and the people behind it. Imagine tagging is used wider than to just give broader information (e.g. general topic) but includes many much more information such as the “character” of a lesson learnt (success, failure, slow, expensive, high impact etc.). Many people already do that in social bookmarking, though it is very individual.

  • Would that mean I can connect experiences the way it was down with a sophisticated application for the station masters? I wonder whether tags for evaluation can work as good as the topic-wise ones.
  • How could the word “slow” be separated in a tag cloud from the word “software” so they do not stand next to each other?
  • Do I really need this, or do topic clouds bring me anyway quicker to the field of my interest, and comments deliver the evaluation to me?

My aim is to use the power of a network itself to connect to experiences directly. I think that in most cases an application such as the station master is too much of an effort. It needs criteria and complicated programming. Can’t this be done easier with web2.0 technology and the wisdom of crowd?

Can free and open source software make a difference in developing countries?

July 23, 2007

I have already written before about the concept of open source, but this time I want to highlight the potential of free and open source software (FOSS). I attended a while ago an interesting presentation on free and open source software by Andrea Götzke and Balthas Seibold. What I found most interesting about the presentation were the manifold effects of FOSS:

  • Economy
    Cost savings from purchasing software. The market barrier is low for new businesses, but the overall added value is higher because the software can be developed locally. With services for hardware and the web, FOSS offers local employment and development of software and generates though more income locally.
  • Education
    FOSS offers universal access. The freedom to study the code of software. In Venezuela, for example, FOSS gave access to education because the whole infrastructure is much cheaper there and own training capacity was built. FOSS can act as a free knowledge transfer and create human capital e.g. through software development. It, therefore, can lead to a “brain gain”. FOSS allows and needs a complete different approach of collaborative work project with high value on common learning.
  • Culture
    The development and usage of FOSS can contribute to the country cultural heritage. Own developed software products can be better adapted to local needs and offered in many languages. Own software solutions open new venues of knowledge sharing and learning.
  • Law
    Open source software is freely available and guarantees legal security. FOSS offers a sustainable technological independence.

Free Open Source Software represents certain values - sharing, collaborating, community and social development. These values have deep roots in human nature and could be found in all societies at all times. They believe this model - developing software by a community of peer reviewed activists, participants, employees and gifting the results back into the community to be further developed by others thus extending the cycle - could be extended to economic and social development in Africa. It is in this context that the FOSS model emerges as a powerful model for African development. From Brenda Zulu

Challenges

  • For a high reliability on FOSS, a critical community is needed, which constantly tests and changes the source code. It needs open culture, which is not always prevailing.
  • Proprietary software is also available illegally and cheap, so it offers no incentive to switch to FOSS.
  • In many countries the FOSS community is very small and the interaction in a network needs the web and therefore connectivity, which is often not available.
  • Much has been done in translating software, therefore many web software is available in different languages. But that is not the case with document material.
  • In many countries a whole training infrastructure has to be build to switch to open source software. For example, the Venezuelan Government decided to adopt open source some years ago, and build with it many resources, own training and development infrastructure.

I often got the feedback from practitioners that it also depends on the needs of each particular case. Proprietary software can be a better solution or is anyway the only one available. I am sure I missed many points and factors, but I will continue later on with that topic.


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