Techophilia and Social Progress

Just been trying a cool new social network that is done as a comic. You can use your own characters or pre-made characters to say your blog words or whatever. Love it! Bitstrips.com

I’m really disappointed that my Alma Mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has decided to continue banning video artist Wafaa Bilal’s show at the RPI arts dept. Giving various reasons, the administration, led by President Shirley Ann Jackson (whom I had hoped would be more progressive) has closed the show. It opened again at http://www.mediasanctuary.org/ but was closed after one day by the city of Troy citing some bylaw infraction. Clearly, they are trying to prevent Wafaa’s message getting out. Ironically, he is a pacifist. The only aspect that is good about this censorship is that it is at least generating discussion about Free Speech. But hey, wouldn’t you have thought that was already something we could agree on??

I saw a youth video on the weekend at a conference and I was struck as we all applauded that while it was cool that they could use the videocamera and editing tools, it was clear that the message was one of violence. Not intense, but more the “wanna-be gangster”…. We’ve been working with youth for the past few years, and the last two years we’ve been teaching a lot of digital literacy skills. But I realize that is only one side of the coin. What we also need media literacy as well. First off, sensitizing them to violence and the unreality of the gang culture that’s put out in a lot of music that the youth I work with love to listen to. Youth have to understand how to decode media so they can create responsibly the messages and stories they want to convey. I read a sad story of a Labrador community where the youth believed the TV “Friends” lifestyle was possible in the “big” cities. I read in some article that the actual value of the supposed New York Friends’ lifestyle was in the millions. Even youth here when they come to Vancouver, somehow think that the world they encounter in television is actually here for them. This isn’t too say that it is impossible to reach, but if you think that the streets are paved with gold in Vancouver, you aren’t likely going to want to stay around home in Terrace…

From a new report by Ipsos-Reid:
“Contrary to popular belief, teens are not online as much as they are stereotyped to be, the time they do spend on the Internet is focused rather narrowly on particular types of websites and activities, and their comfort level with technology is actually much lower than adults. ”

This is fascinating research. One point that did stand out is that many teens’ access to the Internet are limited by their parents. If this was removed, would they have sky-high Internet hours?

Listening to Brian Oberkirch and he asked an interesting question, how many social networks do you belong to. I naturally thought of one, the one I use the most, which is Facebook, but he mentioned a bunch more. I realized I have a Myspace, Last.fm, Linked In, Pandora, Upcoming, flickr, del.icio.us, twitter, this blog, as well as Facebook. Many of these I don’t use a lot, but it actually surprised me. Brian’s main point was around OpenID. We need more ways to share these services. So I’ve just gone and signed up my new OpenID, which is great. Now hopefully I’ll find ways to use it!

We’ve been using Drupal for two years now, and it has become the main CMS for our development work. Which is why it is interesting to read this article http://www.xconomy.com/2007/12/20/a-big-drop-in-the-bucket-for-drupal/  Basically, the company Acquia aims to be to Drupal what Redhat is to Linux, which to me is a professionalization of the Drupal product. I think this is a pretty great idea. Drupal is great, but lacks such fundamentals as a well written user manual, or more careful upgrade instructions. Plus, some modules are not quite complete, so maybe this will be a way for some of them to be addressed as well.

I wrote this up to share this with folks as it struck me as I’m interested how other people do this.

For the main aspect, I use MS Outlook 2003 tied into a TREO 700p. All of my contacts, calendar and notes are synch’d. I just use the email on the my TREO to check when I’m out of the office (which is pretty often).

I just love TREO and use it a lot nowadays, from taking notes in meetings, checking email, and getting maps from Google. I text msg with my employees for scheduling updates. I take photos of whiteboards, flipcharts with the phone and share them in email. It’s so easy to check my schedule now compared to pen and paper.

One thing I find is a lifesaver is Simulscribe.com. It answers both my cell and office phone, and transcribes the audio into text and emails me. I haven’t had to listen to voicemail in a year!

I also use Groove and Basecamp on my laptop. Both are file sharing programs. Groove, made by Microsoft, is an application from Office 2007. I use it for internal processes with staff, keeping files sync’d, graphics share, proposals, forms and documents. Groove also costs too much and was a pain for my clients without admin access to their computers. (Also, it’s not available to clients on Mac.) I use Basecamp, which is a web app, to communicate with my clients as it’s so easy they can figure it out without training. It is a nice way for me to also keep track of the documents I’ve shared with them and they know when I’ve completed things.

I use X1 as an desktop search engine, mostly for email and documents. I used to use Google Desktop, but I got nervous about the comprehensive way it indexes. X1 gave me more precise control, although it’s also that I am pretty used to the interface. I scan all the biz cards I get from clients, suppliers, etc into Outlook.

Other things I use to keep organized - I use Successfactors to manage HR and Salesforce to manage my sales funnel. Both are good, but take a lot of time to regularly maintain. My staff have not really embraced the use of Successfactors. Salesforce I used more before a recent change that made it awkward to upload new contacts. I use flickr for my photos, but that is mostly personal.

One new web app I’ve tried is Soonr, as I can look at files that are on my computer from my cell phone. But I am never that far away from my laptop and can usually wait. Plus I have a laptop which means that often it is with me, and sp unavailable to be accessed via a cell. So while neat, it hasn’t been much use yet.

I do wish there was a better way to have a single device. A better camera and MP3 player into my phone. iPhone might be the one, but I do use Palm apps for other things, like reading books while I travel.

Anyway, reading this, maybe now I think I’m not all that common! But I’m pretty happy with my level of organization, thanks to all of these online services and software!

I had the opportunity to be a part of a Broadband Symposium in Haida Gwaii in Nov 07. It was organized by Art Lew of the Community Futures there. It was a great opportunity to hear from a large group of experts about the opportunities and challenges for communities that have high speed Internet. Haida Gwaii is just in the process of being hooked up, courtesy of TELUS, the BC Gov’t and GwaiiTel, a local not-for-profit group that is working to connect the last mile.

Here’s some of the presentations, including mine.

• Phillip Djwa - The Future of Work (880KB)
• Jamie Sterritt - Enhancing Community Vitality through ICT
  
• Chris Bywater - Developing and Expanding your eBusiness
  
• Terry McAloney - High-Speed Internet on Haida Gwaii
  

At a recent conference, we convened a discussion around youth and what our thoughts are about engaging youth.

Here were the rough notes that I took! It took me a while to write these up, so I feel like I’ve missed some important things, but still, here’s what I remember.

There were a bunch of fantastic people there!

· Victoria Henry, Public Outreach

· Hannah Renglich, Five Minutes to Midnight

· Anna Strom, Renewal Partners

· Nathan Gilbert, Laidlaw Foundation

· Charles Tsai, Global Youth fund

· Alanna MacLennan, Projections Youth

· Tom Willians, GiveMeaning

· Joseph Mouzon, Network for Good

· Marta ?

· Allan Wong, Power of Hope

Youth have it figured it out – it’s the “adults” that need the help. But youth need to be addressed and respected. Youth experiences must be honoured. They can’t be token window-dressing, which often happens with a single “youth in the room”. Meaningful youth engagement is a long and tricky process but must be part of any program. We need to be blind to age and bridge intergenerational communities.

Youth are under siege, being lied to and being targeted by message that are “buy buy buy”. It is a serious state of affairs with youth bored and fighting no to have their differences suppressed. Media literacy is a key part of helping them through this world. This is something we adults can help them with.

Yet they have the answer. They are being lied to but responding with humour, for example with Youtube spoofs.

Digital storytelling is an effective way for youth engagement, given that it is logical for them to use technology. But the role of stories is far beyond just a tale. We need to expand the idea of stories into helping them interpret the world. For example, youth media could shoot stories for not-for-profit orgs and then these are used to tell a story.

Some principles that we need to follow while working with youth:

- suppression of difference must be avoided (don’t constrain them to our adult value system)

- dialogue continuously (and check your language around your beliefs)

- invite youth without restriction

- level the playing field

- provide food

- trust them

- be careful representing the youth to funders, clients

- avoid stereotyping

We also need to example public policies in Canada, for example early childhood education and crime. They need to reflect our current thinking about youth.

More comments that were said verbatim are as follows.

Victoria- we need to have language more accessible, sometimes youth are seen as window-dressing, the experience of being the “youth in the room”

Hannah - online sometimes fails to build a community, how to bridge communities?

Nathan – the laidlaw foundation really practices youth engagement
How to give youth power & representation (they are different) Laidlaw builds in a policy piece – Nathan’s job review is partially completed by youth

Charles - peer to peer learning is key

- this I believe was Global Youth’s essay contest
- high quality youth recordings
- 25 different countries including Togo
- important to have projects that engage them
- to share beliefs
- recently, spent a week in NYC
- there is a barrier in terms of structures i.e. short periods prevent deeper knowledge sharing

Alanna - Projections has a film/video film mentoring aspect linking back to education. small, but long term skills and tools that are needed from POV of students, focus on struggle – they need a chance to be kids, be young

Tom - media literacy is important issue. What is the agenda behind the message? What spoofs of ads are youth responding to? They are being lied to but responding with humour. The Internet is getting worse – either flame war and/or leave

Joseph - had a big interest in youth - reel vignettes and use rich media to tell their story salesforce, bayback has youth media shoot not-for-profit orgs and then use to tell story. Community foundation supports youth media to tell the story of non profits

Marta - youth power, youth are our future – we need an integrated approach that is a holistic view

Allan wong - why I do my work is very related to youth boredom and suppression of difference. Youth are alienated and disconnected and it has gotten to a point where it is a serious sickness, but at the same time they are their own antidote - work is around creativity and engagement of youth. Yes it is dire situation but being real around the communities around issues is important. How to bring sense of aliveness/ creation / constructivism

From here on, it was more of a free input, so I lost the thread of who said what…

Youth need creation and reflection time

It’s logical that they would use technology

But it has to be a meaningful dialogue
just thinking of youth can lead to a token youth
Bigger question of how do we actually be blind to age?

empowering
How do you get information to them
where are you getting your information
how to get them to take action
how to honour their experience
only recently has school been part of this what they want is real engagement connect them to bigger projects

resource is teenage liberation handbook
youtube - power of storytelling - one fact you communicate in terms of special place ideasbank - actionable ideas that youth can take videos are taken by adults, and 1 by kids communicate

role of stories, far beyond just a tale
expand the idea of stories
young people are targeted for marketing - peers etc how do we interpret the world making stories with meaning shouldn’t be just I’m not good enough that I need to buy something…

create youth space
check your ideas and beliefs around your own belief especially language - alienation and class power is always an issue

want to constrain to value system – invite youth without restriction - unblock that disconnect

Youth have it figured it out - we need the help

Where is the intergenerational reciprocity? What do adults give if youth are encouraged to participate?

working with youth is still the “other”
we have something valuable
youth are questioning the value systems

avoid stereotyping
less universal
computer aspect for example

what are some principles
each group has to work with youth
- suppression of difference must be avoided
- dialogue continuously
- level the playing field
- food
- trust
- we have to be careful in the way we market our services
- be careful representing the youth

- direct programs

- public policies in Canada, ie early childhood education and crime
- concept of play is important
- identity formation
- consortium - arts based organizations
- challenge municipalities to be youth friendly
- abdication of parenting – how are parents responsible?

two parts to the question
- training youth and adults

- approach is being there
- cultural
- be the best ancestor you can be

- have youth be able to do what?

- intergenerational work

I found this on Beth Kanter’s blog and it seems to be from NTEN confernence 2007. Author names are in the show. It has some great examples of ways that not-for-profits can use social networking sites. It lays out clearly the argument for using “web 2.0″ apps, including some fantastic stats. It only really goes into Digg and Stumpleupon as  specific examples, but it lays out really great tips for actually using them. The interesting thing is that it is clear that both are going to take time to really become effective. There is a relationship that has to be developed with the potential audience in using these and that takes time. Whether your organization has the time or not, it’s an effective read on what should be done. Of course, my bias is that you should be using these tools, but there is a commitment required.