From KWMC to myKP
April 11, 2008 Posted by Stephen Hilton in : Wireless, Bristol, Community Media, collaboration, Guest Bloggers , add a commentThank you Makala for finding time to blog in what was a very busy and momentous week for the Knowle West Media Centre. Congratulations to you, Carolyn, Penny and all of the staff and local people involved in the two-day launch. I went along there this afternoon and was hugely impressed by what has been achieved… and this is only the start!
And now we welcome our new Guest Blogger, George Kaloudis.
Officially George Kaloudis’s position at myKP, Australia’s leading community Wi-Fi provider, is Director of Stuff. As his title suggests, George gets his hands dirty on pretty much every aspect of myKP’s operation.
George describes himself as, “absolutely passionate about what we do, a rebel with a cause.” George has spent close to 15 years in telecommunications in strategic positions for global carriers and service providers, building, developing relationships and implementing key infrastructure across Asia, USA… and Australia of course; anything from the deployment of billion dollar multi continent submarine cable systems to peering agreements with Google.
George declares, “I love what I do and I am keen to start a revolution” and he asks “… are you with me?” As he says, “there is nothing as powerful as an idea who’s time has come” (Victor Hugo).
Global Campaigning, Free Stuff and Cute Cats
March 17, 2008 Posted by Andy in : Bristol, e-society, Technology, collaboration, Guest Bloggers , 1 comment so farRecently, I worked with the Global Campaign for Education, who promote education as a human right around the world. They are a coalition of NGOs and trade unions and they run the Global Action Week, which sees activity in 120 countries around the world. Last year, over 5 millon children took part in the campaign.
Action Week this year starts on the 27th April.
The main reason to mention them is to highlight an organisation that could not have existed in its current form only a few years ago. You can run a huge, credible global campaign on infrastructure that is basically free, but arguably as good as the systems being used by multinational companies. So if you wanted to start your own global campaign, I’d suggest three applications that could save you tens of thousands in annual running costs:
Gmail: Free email accounts, but also huge (huge) online storage capability which gives you a place to store files and back things up. With google apps, you can create a private intranet and website. The basic service is free (and good enough for most people).
Google News Alerts: This provides a media monitoring service comparable to expensive clipping services, especially if you’re looking for global coverage. This is free, too.
Skype: You don’t even need a phone. Skype’s free international calling and instant messaging can bring together groups from around the world. It’s also got free video conferencing.
On top of this core infrastructure you’ve also got all the social media applications like myspace, facebook, wordpress and the rest.
There’s a lot been written recently about “free” as a business model recently (mostly triggered by this article in Wired), but one of the consequences of this is that you don’t need to spend much money to organise a huge global campaign.
As I was writing this entry, I came across this interesting presentation by Ethan Zuckerman on “The Cute Cat theory of digital activism” that makes a similar point, but for a slightly different audience. It’s aimed at people who build web services and it argues that if you build free online social web tools, one of the tests of their usefulness is whether or not they are used by activists.
The internet is about more than just pictures of cute cats, as shown by this graphic:
He concludes:
If there’s a single message to the talk, it is that activists are going to use your tools if your tools are any good - watch them, pay attention to them, protect them and learn from them. They’ll make your tools better, and they’re one of the reasons to make social software in the first place.
It’s got loads of good international case studies in it as well. Well worth a read over your lunch.
COSMIC sees through the storm
March 10, 2008 Posted by julzswitch in : Bristol, Events, South West region, collaboration, Guest Bloggers , 1 comment so farHello Connecting Bristol, and thank you for asking me to be guest blogger for the week - I feel privileged to join in. I thought it would be useful to reflect each day on my role as Regional ICT Champion for the third sector here in the South West, as well as on my role as Chief Executive at COSMIC - and there’s always plenty to say about both roles.
Well what a start to the day - storms overnight meant a collapsed fence first thing at the office - we decided that we would wait and see if the weather got worse before fixing it. Sounds like an analogy for a few organisations I know recently!
Last week, on Wednesday 5th March, we ran the Rural ICT Conference at Lackham College near Chippenham and today I have been pulling together presentations, reports and feedback to complete a post-conference report. It has reminded me of the value of documenting events and reflecting on their value, for the benefit of those not able to attend but also to remind people who were there what we achieved in just one day! It really was a great event and lots of discussions and debate focussed on initiatives, campaigns and collaboration which will help to make the work of rural VCOs more effective using ICT. I will be posting a full copy of the event report on my Champs blog soon.
In the process of pulling the conference report together I have been using SlideShare to upload and share the various powerpoints from the day. If you haven’t used it already then its worth a try. You can upload full copies of powerpoints to the online store and then share them with contacts or the wider world.
Here at COSMIC we have been reviewing recent decisions and some others which are imminent which could offer more funding for the delivery of ICT support to third sector organisations across the region. Both Capacity Builders and the Big Lottery BASIS programme are looking at their funding programmes and making announcements in the coming weeks. We will be looking for as many opportunities as possible to boost the ICT support available to organisations. Good news is that Regional ICT Champions funding will continue for a further three years, and we are hopeful that the powers-that-be at the lottery will also identify ICT as a key support issue in its BASIS round 2 funding.
This week I am writing in three separate blogs - this one for Connecting Bristol, my Champs blog as shown above, and also one as Social Enterprise Ambassador. I just hope people are reading them all … or at least one of them!
Julie Harris, COSMIC
I Think or We Think?
January 29, 2008 Posted by Stephen Hilton in : e-democracy, Bristol, Innovation, Festival of Ideas, collaboration , add a commentIn many large, corporate organisations, it is the Chief Executive’s views that all-important. But is there another way? Can organisations develop new, collaborative ways of working and will these deliver better services?
In the Connecting Bristol bid we referred to “co-production” – Charles Leadbetter talks and writes about “we-think”
“We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what the rise of the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. My argument is that these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of a society in which participation will be the key organising idea rather than consumption and work. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines’
from Charles Leadbetter We Think
In this Festival of Ideas event, you can, for £7.50, help co-create an interesting lunchtime outing as Charles Leadbetter is speaking at the Watershed in Bristol.
Charles Leadbeater
We-think: the power of mass creativity
26 February 2008, 12.45-13.45
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol
