Archive for the ‘process’ Category

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Civic Entrepreneurship, Community Informatics and the Gift Economy

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

I composed a short list of some essential readings that reflect a world-view appropriate to the Internet Era, I shared it with friends studying Community Informatics and Civic Entrepreurship, two domains seeking a better world. Since I recently catalogued (part of) my personal library using LibraryThing, it makes sense to share these here as well (as they are part of my virtual library).

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.

Posted in books, civic entrepreneurship, commons, community informatics, education, ethos, excellence, gift economy, grassroots, green, Internet, media history, network, open source, open space, philanthropy, politics, process, public, social justice, social source, theory, thoughts, tools | 1 Comment »

Truer than Truth

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

I’m taking a course on storytelling. Although I have been involved in community informatics for several years as an activist and organizer on digital divide/digital excellence and community networking, I found this work to involve the telling of stories and general reframing community and what we are about, or what is possible for us.

I was watching a video from the TED conference where Isabel Allende offered the old adage: What is truer than truth? The story. (Variants on this answer may be a matter of translation: Legend, Myth, Story, Narrative.)

I grew up on Grimm, and many mythologies… great preparation for an early encounter with Joseph Campbell via the Power of Myth (where Bill Moyers, another hero, interviewed him). I later made extensive study of semiotics and have an enduring interest in narrative, and the importance of story and discourse.

In recent years Italo Calvino brought me back to the play of stories/storytelling in the work of the OuLiPo — where art is craft that you work at each day, and good art or literature arises from finding the right combination of signs through experiment and experienced judgment.

Campbell’s work on myth and ritual, the idea of the story opening a path to greater truth than mere facts, or perhaps a greater truth in discourse around a story than in any particular telling or offering of an account, and the idea in Calvino that folktale is not myth degenerated but that myth arises out of folktale when the right combination his hit upon, these are all connected.

Storytelling is part of the natural and necessary repertoire of human behavior… it helps us cope and adapt as well as honor and remember. Though stories can be used to divide, their healing potential is critical in this moment. Our creative play can reconfigure our individuality and our collective life.

Posted in aphorisms, books, civic garden, commons, excellence, grassroots, media history, process, semiotic, theory, thoughts | 1 Comment »

Wiki works better than email for group coordination: Explanations In Plain English

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

Short video linked here is well worth a few minutes, if you would like to explain wiki to those who cling to email:

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Here’s a longer related article: Wiki and the Perfect Camping Trip | Common Craft – Explanations In Plain English

Posted in process, tools, wiki | No Comments »

Don’t be sold an invisible thread, get all the threads your community needs

Monday, August 20th, 2007

Josh Breitbart blogs a warning to all who seek digital inclusion or more (perhaps excellence) for their community, here: Horizontal vs. Hub-and-Spoke Relations, or The Emperor has no Invisible Thread. The bottom line: unless your city has character and backbone, and cares for the people, the people will be ill-served by the network they get.

There are no tangents in holistic approaches to technology and community, so please bear with me as I tug that thread metaphor in another important direction.

Robust networks/redundancy; generosity/capacity.

Consider this image (evoked by Breitbart’s commentary on the as-yet missing (but promised) invisible thread): Sidney J. Mussberger (the character in the Hudsucker Proxy played by Paul Newman) dangling upside down at the ledge of a skyscraper reflecting on the need for the robust redundancy of a double stitch as the seam at his waist begins to give.

Mussberger (Newman) reflects on his (stingy/cynical) scoffing at his tailor’s suggestion of the double-stitch for his hand-tailored trousers. When a single-stitch will do, why spend more? He regards the tailor’s suggestion as an unnecessary expense and worse, an attempt to rip him off.

(Warning: Minor spoiler!) Mussberger’s pants don’t give way at the moment he needs them to hold together most. The Tailor generously gave him the double-stitch anyway.

What lessons to draw?

Along with tying our communities together in many horizontal relations (Neff and Philadephia’s “invisible thread”), and assurances of digital inclusion and economic development benefits there are public safety needs related to these networks. (We should explore how horizontality in planning and design would strengthen those purposes.) Robust, redundant networks are critical to public safety. Or, consider the demonstrated value of a small cadre of community wireless networkers post Katrina. (The lesson there being, volunteer knowledge and technical capacity, and the freedom to act in the deployment of networks is just as critical.)

We are being promised a lot of things in the selling of broadband and wireless networks. We had best make sure we are getting what we pay for and that we are prepared to pay enough. I wouldn’t bank my hopes on the generosity of the network vendors. Get what you need and get it in writing, then get it verified. You don’t want to be left in regret or wonder when hanging by a thread.

Posted in civic garden, community, ethos, excellence, film, grassroots, Illinois, Internet, network, politics, process, public, social justice, wireless, wireless chicago | No Comments »

the critique of education

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

We are hostile to Dogma. That is the final word. We are not hostile to Education as such, but rather to such defenses of ‘it’ which render its’ rational alteration improbable.

Dogma is singular in the abstract, but in concrete it is many.

In our hostility toward Dogma we must be hostile to our own Dogma, or at least suspicious of it. In this way we will be better able to follow the Kantian maxim, if we take up this war. We must not fight this battle in such a way as to preclude a future peace.

We reject Dogma as stylized response which impairs or otherwise hinders communication. It is likely that there is something behind the Dogma.

If we are to do anything constructive we must free up the voice of that something so that it can be heard, so that it can be taken account of. What is rejected primarily in Dogma is not faith. It is a manner of presentation which is deceptive. Deception need not be intentional. Indeed we will agree with the Pragmatists’ denial of privileged access to “intent”.

If we can get behind the mask of Dogma and see the Face of the Other we will have opened channels of communication.

Dogmatic expression adds nothing, moreover it takes away. It serves as a possible model of future behavior. Can we say that it is inefficient? We must break this habit. It befuddles our thought. It hearkens back to ‘essences’. Inefficiency is not a function of Dogma or Dogmatic Expression, nor is it a feature of it, nor the essence of it. For as with Rationality, we must speak of inefficiency in terms of purposes, aims, groups.

Dogmatic Expression is related to homophilly. The Expression of attitudes, beliefs, may serve to secure and identify group boundaries. In this respect it can be considered efficient, both for the group, and for the groups it serves to contrast. And for a larger constellation of groups it may well serve the regulation of parts.

Dogma and Dogmatic Expression serve pattern maintenance. Growth within the group and under the regime is channeled along certain lines. Other possibilities for growth are circumscribed, and foregone/foreclosed, if not obstructed.

Within any group there may be forces which are held back. The group is an institution, it is an idea. Forces are held in check for the purpose of achieving other ends.

[Stability, Identity may be ends pursued.]

Posted in aphorisms, conversations, education, excellence, process, theory, thoughts | No Comments »

Chicago Report on Digital Excellence

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

The long awaited report from the Mayor’s Advisory Council on Closing the Digital Divide was released Friday June 15th at the Community Media Summit convened by the Benton Foundation and the Community Media Workshop under the title The City that NetWorks: Transforming Society and Economy Through Digital Excellence.

Digital Excellence is both means and end for Chicago as the City of Excellence. The Chicago Digital Access Alliance (CDAA) had a large hand in bringing this vision into the public sphere. We’ll turn a critical eye to the details of the report, as is our duty, but for now we celebrate it’s release and the vision that has been established, and we offer our deepest gratitude to Julia M. Stasch for her service to our city in chairing the Mayor’s Advisory Council and shepherding this visionary and historical document.

Stay tuned for analysis and response.

Posted in civic garden, commons, community, education, EFN, ethos, excellence, philanthropy, politics, process, public, social justice, wireless, wireless chicago | No Comments »

conference on neighborhood leadership

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

     
    You are invited to co-create the 4th Annual Chicago Conference for Good. PLEASE join us, bring friends and add spirit! Share this invitation with neighbors and colleagues, people you’d like to connect or reconnect with this July!

“…cuz people
who do stuff
need to know
more people
who do stuff.”
– ted ernst

   
 

Localizing

Global

Change:

 

Issues

and

Opportunities
   

 

July 19-22

in the Little Village neighborhood of

Chicago, IL USA

     
   

Discussion

What kind of stuff
have we been doing?

  • hosting and attending green dinners,
  • community gardening,
  • blogging,
  • digital excellence… inclusion,
  • chicago conservation corps training,
  • growing food,
  • organizing block clubs and parties,
  • depaving your yard and inviting neighbors,
  • restoring a riverbank,
  • planting native prairie in your local park
  • organizing your neighbors to work with the alderman or CAPS to get a camera,
  • or get one taken out,
  • recruiting volunteers,
  • organizing safe routes to school,
  • buying organic foods,
  • experimenting with new tech ways to connect people,
  • and living with less tech
  • driving less,
  • recycling more,
  • ensuring all differently brained people are seen as human beings,
  • seeing to it that the ADA laws are followed,
  • making social activists are supported and nurtured,
  • urban chicken egg farming
  • block clubs
  • traffic calming
  • peace parks
  • “doing.”… ,

  The momentum of community is rising. Please join us! …for More and More. More and more people. More and more resources. More and more easy. More and more connected. More and more green. More and more power to do good things, in more and more local neighborhoods and organizations.Three years ago, some of us convened a small but national conference on the future of philanthropy, technology and community action. Two years ago, more of us joined in to create a second and international conference which was also the first-ever omidyar.net members conference. Last year we did it again, and along the way these conversations have sparked half a dozen more conferences and action on at least four continents.All the while, you’ve been busy doing all the things you do to try make the world a better place, and you’ve been noticing that more and more people are getting together for global community good. This year’s global gathering in Chicago is going to focus on “doing”. All good work. All kinds of local action. We welcome good people from everywhere to join with people we are actively inviting who are “doing” in Chicago neighborhoods. Bring your own local doing to share. We want to do more and more in all localities, and to do it more together.This year’s conference will follow the same simple and active format as all the previous conferences. We’ll gather for one big opening, create a working agenda that includes all of our most important issues and questions, meet with friends and colleagues to actively address everything on the agenda, document and publish our notes online, and head back out into all the things we are doing with more energy, more clarity and more connections.

The momentum of community is rising. Please join us!
…for more and more global good on the ground where you live.

WHEN? July 19-22, 2007 …music and barbecue on Thursday night, conference all day Friday and Saturday, finishing by noon on Sunday, with airport drop-offs or excursions for out-of-towners on Sunday afternoon.

WHERE? General Robert E. Wood Boys & Girls Club, 2950 W. 25th Street, Chicago IL 60623

WHO SHOULD COME? Anyone who wants to get more and more into community, technology, environment, and other social justice kinds of work and practice. Anyone who wants to make more and more connections between all these sorts of things. And anyone who wants to have more and more fun and friends in the process of community leadership.

WHAT TO BRING? Food to eat/share, materials to show/share, ideas and questions, issues and projects that you care about and want to inform and be informed by others AND a total of $40 (scholarships may be available) to pay for basic costs of site and materials for all three days of meetings.

NOW WHAT? Send an email to register@globalchicago.net (or any other address we like), make a payment at paypal (details forthcoming), forward this invitation to friends and colleagues, people you work with — and people you want to work with. we’ll send you details about places and times and be glad to answer any other questions. Stay tuned to www.GlobalChicago.net for more information.

CO-CONVENERS? Ted Ernst, Christina Jordan, Michael Maranda, Hermilo Hinojosa, Kachina Katrina Zavalney, Pierre Clark, Julie Peterson, Jean Russell, Dave Chakrabarti, and You…

Posted in commons, community, education, EFN, excellence, grassroots, green, network, news, open space, philanthropy, politics, process, public, social justice, social source, tools, traffic and transit, wireless, wireless chicago | No Comments »

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