Category: Tech

community application of technology for public benefit

Learners & Leaders Apply Within

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You might have gotten an e-mail or a tweet recently about something called the “NCTech4Good Unconference.”  You are probably wondering whether it is worth one’s time on a pretty Saturday to sit inside with a bunch of nerds, especially if (like me) this is how you already spent most of your week.

Well, let me tell you why I’ll be there.

As a geek, I’ll get to learn about some of the newest tools and interesting ideas percolating up. I’ll also get an opportunity to hear how my skills can be used to serve the community and make connections that might lead to my Next Big Project.

As a nonprofit professional, I’ll get to hear about some of the emerging technologies that I need to use in my work, and even form personal relationships with the experts in my field. I’ll also get a chance to tell my story to people who can commiserate and/or learn how to better serve organizations like mine.

As an activist, I’ll get a chance to evangelize. I can tell people why I think a certain technology or strategy is the very best, and help them see how it can be useful in their own work. I might even recuit new allies and advocates for my cause!

On some subjects I am a newbie, and I will learn from experts. On others, I am the pro and will show off my knowledge. One of the guiding rules of unconferences is this:

Whoever comes are the right group of people.

I hope some of you readers and friends are the right people, and that you’ll make this the wonderful event that YOU envision! Learn more at http://nctech4good.org/wiki

 

People with red hearts making the shape of a heart. Illustration by Keith Haring.

I (heart) unconferences

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As I mentioned in my last blog post, HASTAC is hosting and facilitating the first-ever NCTech4Good Unconference on April 16th. I’ve found that there is a lot of (understandable) confusion about what an “unconference” (or “Barcamp”) is, especially among those who have not experienced them – but sometimes even with those who have.

The history of this idea is less important than how it’s done, but it’s quite interesting and worth mentioning here. This idea was first conceived in the 1980’s as Open Space Technology – a way for participants to organize and conduct their own conferences. The first BarCamp (essentially an unconference for geeks) was held in 2005 in response to the elite FOOCamp  that was hosted by tech media mogul Tim O’Reilly. I believe BarCamps were also inspired by the BloggerCons of the early 2000’s which aimed to bring a blog-like dialog into real-life meetings. So that’s enough history, see this Wikipedia entry for lots more fascinating background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology .

There are a few specific things that I think are key to a successful unconference:

  • There is no agenda before the meeting, but there is a schedule. Some unconferences do kick off with a speaker or panel to spark discussion. It is important to begin the day with someone who can clearly explain the process and lay out the goal of the gathering.
  • Broad participation is key. After kicking things off, anyone who would like to hold a session stands in front of the room and gives a very short “pitch” for their topic. These can be as formal as presentations or as informal as a conversation. The proposer does not need to be an expert on the subject, but has to be willing to facilitate the conversation if no-one else wants to. It’s not uncommon for half the people in the room to offer some kind of session.
  • All of these session ideas are written on cards and posted on The Grid. This is a chart showing your available meeting spaces on one axis and time slots on the other. After all the pitches are posted (or while they are being made) the participants should be prompted to show a general sense of interest (applause, dots, whatever) to help indicate which sessions need bigger or smaller rooms. Then everyone who cares to can have at The Grid – moving and combining (or separating) sessions until everyone’s varying needs are met.
  • In the sessions, The Law of Two Feet is in effect. That is “If at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing: use your two feet and go someplace else.”
  • Another principle is to strongly encourage public documentation of the event. This can be done via blogs, wikis, Twitter, Flickr, etc. This varies depending on the group, but it’s very common that an unconference will have already posted a wiki to collect ideas before the event, so this is a great place to post notes from the sessions.
  • Oh, make sure to provide lots of food and coffee, and have fun!

Registration for the NCTech4Good Conference and Unconference has been held open until Friday April 8, please go sign up now at http://nctech4good.org .

If you haven’t heard enough about unconferences, I strongly recommend the blog of facilitator Kaliya Hamlin. Start here: http://www.unconference.net/unconferencing-how-to-prepare-to-attend-an-unconference/ .

I also recently discovered a wonderful article about teachers using unconferences: http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/07/unconference-revolutionary-professional-learning/ .

(Also posted at hastac.org and nctech4good.org.)

Looking forward to NCTech4Good 2011

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Judy (right) with Nancy Shoemaker of AAUW NC I have a long history working to help North Carolina nonprofits better use communication technology to advance their missions. But even when I started doing this work in 1996, there was one person who was already the “old guard” of nonprofit tech in North Carolina. Her name is Judy Hallman. In 1989, Judy helped to create local, public tech resources through PIN, Inc. PIN spawned NC Communities and RTPnet, the latter of which provided e-mail and web hosting as well as support to nonprofits way back when their only options were AOL and Compuserve. (anyone remember HandsNet?) Two weeks ago, Judy was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Nonprofit Technology Network at their conference in Washington, DC.

Not content to rest on her pioneer laurels, Judy has continued to create and organize for the past two decades. The newest of her endeavors is NCTech4Good, a network that ties together the growing nonprofit tech community in North Carolina, and also hosts the annual NCTech4Good Conference. After last year’s conference, a number of people (including myself) suggested the addition of an unconference after the formal one-day conference. After careful consideration, Judy and other organizers agreed.

All of the above is my longish way of telling you how excited I am that HASTAC is hosting and helping to lead the first-ever NCTech4Good Unconference! We will be using the wonderful facilities here in Duke’s Franklin Humanities Institute (where we also hosted THATCampRTP last fall) and I will be serving as the facilitator, working to make order out of the chaos!

As you may know, I am huge fan of unconferences. In addition to the above-mentioned THATCampRTP, I also used this structure to lead a gathering of our Digital Media and Learning Competition’s 2010 Learning Lab winners, and also employed it at HASTAC’s innovative Peer-to-Peer Pedagogies Workshop last year.  In a future post, I hope to write more about what unconferences are (and aren’t), and how they can form what the brilliant Ann Balsamo calls the “scaffolding” that can support the small or quiet voices that sometimes get drowned out by the crowd.

For now, please check out the web site nctech4good.org (if you live in or near North Carolina) where you can register for the conference, reception, and/or unconference. I hope to see you here!

[NCt4g]

(Also posted at hastac.org and nctech4good.org.)

New media and the civil rights movement

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Cross-posted at http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ruby-sinreich/new-media-and-movement

Last week I had the immense pleasure of attending and participating in “The Unfinished Work”: Advancing New Strategies in the Struggle for Civil Rights a conference honoring civil rights pioneer Julius Chambers. The event was attended by several generations of leaders including many former staffers from the NAACPs Legal Defense Fund (one of the main litigators of civil rights cases). I was personally in awe of the intellectual and cultural prowess of Harvard Law Professor Lani Guinier and Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux, who laid out with precision and wit the problems inherent in the mere idea of a “post-racial” society, not to mention the fact that we most certainly are not living in one.

The Guinier-led plenary also featured Wade Henderson who is the President of the The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. He spoke of the decline of the old ways that people used to get information, and the rise of personal networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. His point that the civil rights movement needs to evolve along with this shifting media ecosystem or risk extinction was a perfect lead in for the panel I was invited to moderate on “New Media and Messaging Social Justice for Social Justice Advocates.”

This distinguished panel brought together insights from a wide range of organizations and issues into a cohesive message which was summarized by panelist Keith Kamisugi: online shouldn’t be your only strategy, but without online you have no strategy. If possible, I will add a recording of the panel when it becomes available. I’ll attempt to summarize our three key topics here:

Lynda Turet of the Center for Social Inclusion began by sharing the CSI’s work researching how people respond to discussion of issues with and without racial symbols. They found that people actually responded better to an ad about health care reform when it specifically addressed the racial undertones that come along with the issue (for many white people) than a similar ad that ignored race.  This prompted me to mention Berkeley Professor George Lakoff‘s 2004 book Don’t Think of an Elephant (a very accessible effort to bring cognitive linguistics to political activists). His main point is that all people have both liberal and conservative frames that we use to understand the world, and that successful activists should work to activate their own frame rather than attempting to negate (while actually reinforcing) their opponent’s view.

Next Jed Miller of Revenue Watch Institute drew on his experiences, including serving as the Internet Director for the ACLU and as an early online community builder for the New York Times, to lay out three major principles for any organization hoping to be successful in the digital age.  1. Timing is critical to having a relevant message that anyone wants to hear. 2. You must understand and work with the network-centric nature of new media. (More on this subject from me.) 3. You must build new media capacity within your organization rather than rely on outside consultants.

Finally Keith Kamisugi of the Equal Justice Society talked about the Digital Divide and the importance of Net Neutrality to preserving free speech on the Internet. (He was also very gracious about the other two speakers running over into his time.)

We didn’t have as much time for questions as we would have liked, but there was some good conversation about information overload, and also a question about efficacy which prompted me to mention Malcom Gladwell’s recent New Yorker peice “Small Change” asserting that Internet activism is not true grassroots organizing and doesn’t really change anything. This thesis was thoroughly debunked by many parties including Cathy here on HASTAC.

Again, it was an honor for me just to participate in this conference with so many legal and movement heavyweights. I was inspired and educated by them, and was glad to have the opportunity to give back by moderating this panel of new media visionaries Lynda, Jed, and Keith.  Thanks and kudos to the UNC Center for Civil Rights which organized The Unfinished Work. To learn more you can download a PDF of the program at http://www.law.unc.edu/documents/civilrights/conferences/the_unfinished_work_brochure.pdf

Addressing Social Media Culture Shock

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Since I already posted my slides from the NTEN We Are Media workshop held at the annual conference of the NC Center for Nonprofits, I thought I would post the slides from Kivi Leroux Miller‘s talk as well. I thought she did a great job of addressing the cultural and organizational change issues that many non-profits face when confronting new media and new forms of communication.

Addressing Social Media Culture Shock

Enjoy!

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Building “buzz” for your cause

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WeAreMediaToday I’m thrilled to be at the annual conference for North Carolina nonprofits. This used to be a regular hangout for me, but in the last decade my work has shifted to more national organizations and I haven’t had the time or funding to attend it in many years. Nice to see all the new and old faces here.

The reason I’m here is that I was invited to be a co-presenter of NTEN’s We Are Media workshop. This all-day workshop is based on the fantastic curriculm developed by the NPtech community with Beth Kanter’s leadership a few years ago. For my breakout session on “Building Buzz” I’ve combined NTEN’s materials on the subject with my own network-centric approach. You can see the results in my presentation…

Building Buzz

Developing a thoughtful RFP

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Remember the RFP that I bragged, err, blogged about back in July? If not: I released a detailed request for proposals (RFP) from Drupal developers to build a new web site for hastac.org. Last week I spoke to the HASTAC Steering Committee about the process of creating it. I thought other folks would also be interested in hearing about how we did it as well.

This presentation below was made as we went along, rather than after the fact, so some ideas evolved and didn’t come out as originally planned – and that’s a good thing. We are now preparing to interview the three top vendors out of 20 that submitted proposals.

HASTAC's RFP process

Delivering more than an RFP

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site map v1

I feel a little like I just gave birth to another baby, but thank goodness it took less than 9 months to gestate and was a lot less painful to deliver!

Less than one year after starting my job at HASTAC and then immediately overseeing the re-launch of hastac.org, I realized that our site would have to be re-built entirely from scratch. I spent this summer working with my colleagues to create a clearer vision and a plan for a complete overhaul of the site. Here’s the request for proposals: http://www.hastac.org/drupal-rfp-2010. I’m really proud of this document as it shows a solid foundation, a forward-thinking vision, and a practical strategy for how to make best use of our great ideas, the Drupal platform, and a brilliant and engaged community of members.

HASTAC Director Cathy Davidson is a deep and complex thinker. Here’s some of what she had to say about the RFP on her blog today:

If you are not a programmer but are interested in how you build up a successful virtual organization, a network of networks, the rfp is a lot more interesting than you might think. It’s not just about half a million page views a year (although we’re proud enough of that!), it is about how a distributed, collaborative team converges into a virtual site and ends up with a whole greater than the sum of many, many, MANY disparate parts. VC’s out there, listen up! There are lessons here.

Ruby’s method was fascinating. I’ve been involved with building three previous websites and no one has organized our group meetings towards the rfp conceptually before. I was skeptical at first, although I loved the conversations we generated from talking about what we envisioned for HASTAC and how we saw the website as the one portal through which you could extend outward through the network, and reach inward too, bringing what ever you and your institution had to offer back to the site where it would likely receive more attention than it could on its own.

It turned out (I’m not sure we would have found this out any other way) that we all possessed different kinds of gifts when asked to conceptualize a virtual network. Fiona Barnett, Director of the HASTAC Scholars, turns out to be a genius at formulating precise kinds of audiences and how they might or might not be best represented or welcomed to the site (yes, we’ve always known Fiona’s a genius but this was yet another manifestation). I tend to be a “both/and” kinda gal, so found myself over and over saying, well, it’s one kind of Venn diagram if you think about it this way, but it’s this other kind when you think . . . This can make developers crazy but Ruby somehow managed to capture the key point that we need FLEXIBILITY AND SIMPLICITY more than anything else.

So that’s the process on the way to Ruby’s eloquent, elegant, and detailed rfp.

– http://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/what-exactly-network-networks

Now that I’ve crossed that finish line, I’m going on vacation with my family for two weeks. When I get back I’ll be gearing up for the next race: actually managing the creation of our new web site.

UPDATE: Download the RFP as a PDF (5 MB).

How to keep thinking like a network

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I had a great time today at the 2010 N.C. Tech for Good Conference. (Izzy enjoyed the reception afterward.)

I did a talk called “How to think like a network,” which is my latest iteration of my favorite subject: the five aspects of effective networks, a.k.a. network-centric advocacy. I’ve been talking to nonprofits, geeks, and activists about this approach for five years now (!) and while the technology has changed a lot, I think the strategy is as relevant as ever.
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