Maybe not enough people understood what you were doing — maybe not enough appreciated what was at stake.

Maybe you can communicate your vision more clearly now.

Maybe you have refined your vision or your methods.

Keep pushing, and keep reflecting on your aims, your method, your motivations.

The Coalition Movement Camp series brings new players and possibilities into view and allows us to connect the dots between them. Our goal is to consolidate our collective powers and prepare for a collaborative web development project unlike anything the world has seen.

The inaugural Coalition Movement Camp took place on October 10, 2010. Participants included representatives of Appropedia, OpenKollab, Metacurrency, 350, Dadamac, CoopAgora, JAK Bank, GreenTribe, and Gaia10. For eight hours, we brainstormed ideas towards a new generation of internet platforms and collaborative strategies for the climate crisis. Details of the 10/10/10 Coalition Movement Camp can be found on the Coalition blog (http://cotw.me/invite101010, http://cotw.me/camp101010).

On November 14, 2010, the conversation continues.

Why are we doing this?

• The world is warming. Satellite records show that in the past two decades, the process of warming has sped up. 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record.
• Without drastic action, we risk temperature rises of 6°C or more by the end of this century. This would be a catastrophe.
• Yet the current international community is ill-prepared, if not unwilling, to reign in carbon emissions to prevent this outcome.

We have no choice but to try a new approach.

We propose using new internet tools and a renewed commitment to interoperability and collaboration to creatively impact this situation and turn it around.

The internet is rapidly evolving from a place for sharing information to a place for collaboration and co-creation. How easy it should be, given the money, talent, and need in the world, to build an online network that enables the best people from about the world to collaborate on climate action solutions.

This is our vision. It is neither radical nor extreme. It is necessary, plain and simple.

Join us on November 14, 2010, as we continue this world-changing adventure. The venue is an open collaboration staging area: http://movementcamp.org. There will be sessions devoted to BetterMeans/Open Enterprise Manifesto, the Global Innovation Commons, and more. You’ll be able to upload image and video files and contribute to real time chat. There will be live interviews and webcasts, with an audio stream component for participants in low-bandwidth zones. Our facilitators will work to summarize developments and keep you up to speed.

Coalition Movement Camp II: Connecting the Dots will run from 2.00pm to 6pm EST. International start times: 7.00pm London, 11.00am Los Angeles, 2.00pm NYC, 6.00am Sydney (Nov 15). Enlist here: http://cotw.me/enlist (Local Start Times: http://cotw.me/cmc2starttime)

If you’d like to send a video shout out or presentation to Coalition Movement Camp participants, we welcome pre-recorded content. Please submit links to Vimeo or Youtube content by Friday November 12, 5.00pm Los Angeles time, and we’ll include suitable material on the Coalition Movement Camp blog. Submit these to: tropology at gmail dot com. Submitted content should include a summary paragraph, with links to more information.

If you are ready to roll up your sleeves and join in this work, see the Coalition Portal for an orientation: http://cotw.cc/

Coalition Movement Camp II: Connecting the Dots

Anyone who puts in 24 hours of service at FGC comes away with a refurbished machine and a great group of friends.

In honor of One Web Day here’s a call to action addressed to all who feel the absence of the great peer networking organizations and online communities that addressed community technology and networking, and to those who joined the field since their zenith.

It is time to Rebuild and Reboot the Network!

Pierre Clark has been doing a great job publicizing DEXCON 2010 (October 29) — and as there has been interest in national/regional coordination and collaboration in the absence of major gatherings (such as the CTCNet Conferences) focused on Digital Inclusion/Digital Excellence and the traditional community tech center, community media and community network concerns, we’ve put together a quick survey to determine feasibility of a Saturday Session for the Chicago DEXCON event.

We’ve already got several affirmative replies, so it looks like it will very likely happen! (Very exciting and much appreciated)

If you have any interest in re-invigorating the field — please do fill out this survey, and do it soon – we need to plan accordingly, all on volunteer steam (feels like the good old days)!

Also, please share this call to action with anyone else you think may have missed the invitation to the survey or the event announcement. Even if you cannot attend, for whatever reason – please check in with us. We’ll be setting up tools to keep the work moving before and after the event and we want to make sure everyone is involved.

We’re looking forward to a new era of open stewardship for our sector!

Warmest Regards,

Michael Maranda
Co-Founder, CDAA

I’m interested in more public dialogue, so I only provide my reaction here, and leave the others in that email exchange to speak for themselves and to audiences of their choosing – but as I have something to get off my chest, here I go…

(Wow, well, glad interest has been sparked…) my read is that real (as opposed to who?) people are affected in so many cross-cutting ways by media policies that they can’t even see it (or if and to the extent they do they are seeing so many things at once, and potentially different things from each other, with different languages to interpret or speak about them).

We’re embedded in the results/effects of media policy. Another factor to consider is the manner in which policy obscures itself. To the extent that those shaping policy are often angling for particular perks, obscurity is a strategy and an advantage … to those passing legislation/policy and serving narrow interests. The contrast between narrow interest vs. general interest in any policy (media or other policy) is the big puzzle. We’ve tended to accept the exigency of acceding to the narrow interest to get things done, or to get the uncomfortable questions off the table. We tend to steer away from the real work that would build enduring, generative capacity.

None of this is terribly helpful, I am sure.

Thom Clark makes excellent points in that capacity is policy … i.e. local capacity is both a (variably effective) policy maker and the result of policy. If we are to collectively “grow ours” (in contrast with “get mine”) then we have to invest in meaningful capacity building that seeds the local and builds lateral connections over these localities (not necessarliy spatial/geographic nearness) – in multiple dimensions – capacity in fields of interest, of professions, of other “community” of various stripes.

That is, every sector of life is touched by this.

In our work on Digital Excellence this was perhaps our central point. (We blend the concepts of Digital Literacy and Media Literacy at this point, at a very deep level, so they maybe synonymous or united at a higher level.)

Every sector, every aspect of our individual and collective lives is touched by media/technology processes. It’s important to pair these terms – individual and collective – it’s not just individual lives here, it’s how we live together that is affected, and our own awareness of our role and freedom to shape this. So it’s groups and communities and families, and organizations that have to be part of the story, too. Each of these flavor and shape the quality of my individual life and I have to take time to care for these aspects of my/our selves.

My gut is to flip the question on it’s head… show me any story or any aspect of life not affected by media policy. I recognize that that’s probably not compelling for the audience.

FWIW, (and to state the banal) I’m an individual… I engage in media activism, and media policy, and I buy into the importance of “being the media”. I endeavored to get others to some state of awareness on several interrelated topics (and to build my own awareness and understanding thereby), not to mention awareness of their interrelatedness, and I employ multiple strategies to do so. I have perhaps a very different notion of “policy work” than what may be commonly understood, but there’s the rub — all sorts of work are being re-imagined and restructured. (That’s nothin’ new, but perhaps only more so now..)

“Be the media” as sentiment and strategy is an expression of this transformation of work and life, and a recognition that practice and policy are one. Policy may otherwise be regarded as something that happens above, or elsewhere, or happens to you … but in this model, policy is what we contest and what we make and how we practice. If you’ve the motivation and I haven’t worn out my welcome take a look at the entry for Grassroots Public Policy Development in the Public Sphere Pattern Language project spearheaded by Doug Schuler.

Getting to this practice of “being the media” and being with (and for) each other in community, talking about and reforming our practice and our communities at the same time gives us something fairly exciting to talk about. Trying to be clear: talking about or sharing any of the strategies we’ve employed feels like a success story to me in that we’ve been building community and community capacity.

I’m tempted to enumerate tools, devices, strategies – ranging from the pattern language process itself to open space and other civic focused gatherings to new models of philanthropic or educational/research engagement to positive media to open data commons models – but any list would be partial, and would not honor the plethora of ongoing efforts and approaches to living together in a new way. So many things tied together … we’re enmeshed in good and bad ways. And as the story goes – each interpretation of the moment is subject to revision. Perhaps.

Any of you are welcome to tell your story here – or anywhere. How does media policy affect you, personally, or the things you care about?

Here’s the description of the session, join us if you can!

Networks of Collaboration and Service: Redesigning Work and Partnership

Tools and Networks abound. Our challenge is in working together effectively. What is missing from the tools and practices of the social benefit sector? What are the opportunities for coordination among and across networks afforded by a shift in perspective towards building for the commons? Catalytic Communities, a pioneer in the solutions ecology will be the starting point for a collaborative design session — building the tools and culture we need to grow a plurality of commons.

That’s the idea. This could be the theme of a conference all it’s own. We’ll see how it goes. We’ve only got one hour, but this is one of the questions that drives me in my work., Even if we just foster a little seriousness on the opportunities this frame evokes, we’ll be taking a step.

Together we can enumerate and provide links to an array of efforts that are disjointed, though worthy. They may have different levels of activity or may be at a relatively inactive state after prior peaks. Enumerating and evaluating these would be a useful task for us, too.

We’ve got an abundance of toolsets and tool providers as well … and so the special challenge to a sustainable effort and a thriving commons becomes more and more probable (it’s not just probable, it’s the situation we have tended towards, and the situation we’re in).

Consider each of these tools and possible community spaces as an attractor. People like us, are seeking community around the practice of community ICT, and if they don’t find it they rightly constitute it for themselves.

A somewhat active space functions as an attractor in these circumstances and from a certain perspective it makes a lot of sense to go with the tool that is present and functioning at some level versus duplicating efforts and dividing the field further.

The issue, as I see it is that the field has multiple attractors none of which are established quite with the field in mind. Someone who finally finds one of these attractors may be quite relieved and may embed themselves in the community (which may or may not satisfy them, or may have fallen into a trough of activity – and there is something valiant in seeking to fulfill the promise of our potential as a wider community in any of these contexts).

But we here, knowing of the many and disparate efforts are a bit weary at maintaining a presence in any number of such sites and communities. Here, even with this conversation we’re making choices where to post, and we have doubts about which is the most effective channel.

We also recognize that as new tools emerge, new community attractors will be constructed by those who either haven’t found the other attractors, or for whom the degree of community there was lacking.

As we make choices based on our history and preferences we’re going to keep fragmenting this field, and reacting to the fragmentation.

Since there are existing sites of community or potential community, which should serve as assets to our movement, we ought to reflect on the perspective of “Movement as Network” (a paper by Gideon Rosenblatt of ONE/NW) – a thought piece for the environmental movement that I read with our field of Community ICT in mind.

What do we do with these assets, these many sites of aggregation, these attractors? Should we establish higher expectations? Should we push them towards collaboration and coordination? Should we disrupt models that don’t align with our own vision of Community ICT? I’ve got my own answer to these, you may all guess.

I’m inviting you to a new mode of practice where we consciously reshape this network of communities and resources. We can take initial steps to get data and information flowing and where it should
not matter which of these sites you come to, you can get the full swath of information you need.

Think for a moment of the WISEREarth Index – could their organizational directory serve as an equivalent of an OpenSocial for the NGO/NPO sector? (Thinking more broadly here than Community ICT – any non-profit monitoring the online world and maintaining any sort of presence there – soon sees a multiple presence effect and has some very partial representation of themselves in many many places, some of their own initiative, and some a result of scraping and some as a result of friends propagating their presence. None of this is sustainable under the current regime of information flow.)

All of this sounds a bit extreme and ambitious … plenty of big ideas litter our sector and have diverted us from more humble work (and some have inspired us to achieve great things, no doubt).

Yet, we can start humbly in this, and we have. Enumerating these spaces, evaluating them and engaging them… starting this conversation is perhaps our own way of moving towards the movement as network attitude. It is for me.

MM

The Free Geek concept is widespread – Portland Oregon the flagship – and well regarded in the Open Source world.

Free Geek Chicago is perhaps unique among Chicago computer recyclers/refurbishers in their endeavor to maximize the life of discarded computer components. Watch the video, let them speak for themselves. Then think about what you can do to further the causes that align under the Free Geek Chicago mission.

Free Geek Chicago needs your support. They need reliable streams of discarded computer equipment. They need us to get the word out. Bring in your old equipment, yes … but perhaps there is more that can be done – for example, you can inquire as to where and how your company’s equipment is handled. If it is picked up for recycling or refurbishing … look into how hard they work to keep the materials out of the waste stream. You may be surprised. Not all recyclers or refurbishers are equal. There are hidden costs to everything … the best way to keep equipment out of landfills foreign or domestic is to increase their useful lives. Such utility has three aspectswe should keep in mind – the functioning of the equipment, the functional (digital) literacy of the person seeking to make use of that equipment (and the harmony of their purposes) and not least – the community or network of support that bridges the physicality of the hardware and the human. This is Free Geek’s talent and m.o.

There’s so much more that I’d love to say. For the moment I just want to spread the positive media meme with the Free Geek Chicago story. They’ve done a great job with their video. I’d love to see the model expand throughout Chicago – or perhaps a network of practitioners around the Chicago Region who are in alignment with the FG values. With a steady supply of equipment perhaps the product range can be expanded … nodes for a wireless mesh network truly owned and run by the community, and media servers for NPOs or community groups – infrastructure for local community information and communication services – think Community Intranet!

We need to spark our collective imagination and share the vision. This is a path towards digital excellence in Chicago.

If Chicago is a world-class city in a leading region of the nation, what are we waiting for? If we are ready to embrace the information age I don’t know what could make us more globally competitive than to remove the artificial barriers to information exchange in city and county. I hear tell there is a committee on data sharing among departments of Chicago city government. I look forward to hearing what progress they have made thus far and how aggressive they intend to be with regard to unfolding a new era in accountability and transparency. Someone, ping Hardik.

Good data is about feedback. Feedback regulates an organism or process. Here it would inform individual choice and guide regional planning. We all know the Mayor loves to have city services on the ball when it comes to potholes and attention to the visible amenities. These eight principles would allow Chicago to set new benchmarks for service delivery and quality of life. You don’t have to be an XML geek to grok this.

Open Government Data Principles

Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:

1. Complete
All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.

2. Primary
Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.

3. Timely
Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.

4. Accessible
Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.

5. Machine processable
Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.

6. Non-discriminatory
Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.

7. Non-proprietary
Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.

8. License-free
Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.

Compliance must be reviewable.

Chicago – let’s wire (and unwire) ourselves.

Wendell offered a comment that if working with XSL is hurting, you are probably approaching it in the wrong way. This applies to many other things in life, certainly.

In the Mumonkan – the Gateless Gate – a collection of 48 koans, the second koan is known as wild fox koan. Having recently reflected upon that koan at some length while thinking of the a-temporality of xslt, I’ve been reading some Zen into the programming philosophy behind XSLT. I’ve applied my own transformation to the question posed in the Wild Fox.

Shall the XSLT Master, applying templates with devotion, escape the law of temporal-causality?

It is worthwhile to think more about the FLOSS (free/libre open source software) context in relation to the Gateless Gate.

(The video was only just released.)

These writings provide a conceptual matrix for an interesting breed of Civic Entrepreneur- (it’s a partial list) … really a new model of Citizenship and Society/Polity. They aren’t new to a lot of you – and if you have other works that you think really need to be on the list, please let me know.

Movement as Network, by Gideon Rosenblatt, also: The three pillars of social source

David Isenberg’s Rise of the Stupid Network

Pushing Power to the Edges (pdf) by Jillaine Smith, Martin Kearns, Allison Fine

The Cluetrain Manifesto (Doc Searles, et al.)

Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

Coase’s Penguin: (by Yochai Benkler … his book The Wealth of Networks is also recommended. There’s a wiki inviting discussion of his ideas.)

The list doesn’t represent any hierarchic ordering.