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

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.

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.

I invite you to take share in a Vision, articulating Guild in (r)elation to Networking and Commons Perspectives which are among core values of the EFN.

Imagine a Guild as a Service-Leadership Collective, grounded in the ethical pursuit of a craft, and standing in relation to a Network of Practice.

Imagine a Concentric Commons: each Guild a Commons, encircled by a Network of Practice also as Commons, encircled at the widest level again by the greatest Commons for All of Us.

There is something striking in the relation amongst these Concentric Commons:

What is Good for All of Us is Good for each Network, and for each Guild.
What is Good for each Network is also Good for each Guild.
What is Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander (got you there!)
What is not Good for each Guild cannot be Good for Network nor for All of Us.
What is not Good for each Network cannot be Good for All of Us.

This sets a high bar, indeed.

As Guild is related to craft and practice… i.e. activities we find useful in this world, we see that within the widest Circle, within the All of Us there are Many Guilds, and Many Networks. (Network offers a Filter and Map.)

Now that the peer-produced encyclopedia, Wikipedia, surpasses all but the premier commercial encyclopedia in completeness and quality, and it is arguably the equal to that one (Britannica), I see it as only a matter of time before peer-produced independent media surpasses all the commercial offerings (can anybody name one that might compete, ok maybe in print, the NY Times, but that’s it)?

Gerry’s comment brought forth an echo from my recent visit to the Pantheon (Paris) where there is a statue to Diderot to the effect that the Encyclopedia paved the way for the social revolution…

So, now, the revolution of the Internet and a wiki-mode of participating in knowledge.

Sometimes it is important to trace lineage… or to search in one’s self and ask how you got where you are, and what influenced you. I was influenced early on by exposure to the history of radio broadcasts largely through the deep knowledge of a family friend, Rick Hall, who worked in Radio. He had quite the collection of vintage broadcasts and I feel so fortunate to have listened to such classics as The Shadow and a plethora of others programs, I won’t even attempt to recall.

In the realm of sports and media, there is the oft-repeated theme of the magic of the radio broadcast… the experience of the nation. We all can’t be there in person. The radio opens the minds eye when the broadcasting voice is creatively gifted. And as our mind’s eye is opened it weaves tapestries and this weaving is what matters.

I think it was a gift to be exposd to Radio in this way. Even if it was much after the original broadcasts. To listen in the dark of night to these stories. They set a fairly high bar for the art of the story. One I always aspired to, but one I recognize as quite the challenge. It established a taste for this art… and later in discovering the work of Ken Nordine and other such radio artists later in college, was really opened wide. Written and Spoken word with layers of sound and narrative. This mindscape was a source of comfort and curiousity through many a night. Finding the right radio station willing to offer history and the avant-garde was always on my mind when traveling to new cities.

With the Internet and the growth of Indy Media I expect that we have so much opportunity for experience and experiments once more. Take a moment… a dark moment, shut yourself off from the multiple channels of connectivity and stimulation. Your eyes may be open or closed in this darkness, but open your ear.

Find your way in through moreandmore.us.

Earlier today a Peter Greenaway short film crossed my mind. I’ve wanted to play the film to the cybertel policy & community networking crowd for some time: Dear Phone (1977), thought it would be great to get it for an event. We’ll see.

Tonight TCM was playing Western Union… I only caught the second half. Western Union doesn’t do telegrams anymore and American Telephone and Telegraph is back on top as Ma Bell is re-merging. I was thinking about the history of telecom and the presentation of network-empire building on the silver screen. Maybe they’d enjoy the Greenaway short at AFI Silver Theater for the F2C happening the first few days of April? We’ll leave that to Mr. Isenberg to work out.