Saturday, November 13, 2010

Community Stream

Steve wrote:
I wanted to let people know about an interesting exchange on the
"Locals Online" group (a community of practice for host on
neighborhood e-lists, forums, placeblogs, social nets, Facebook Pages,
etc.) on the idea of the "community stream":

http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/49NoINmwFmYtOA7pGcQbmD

The general question - at the hyperlocal level, how do you get
community groups and others to simply post the information raw
materials for local community, democracy, etc. - think unedited
pre-news. Since many of us come out of the civic engagement frame and
not journalism, I am interested in other successful examples of
getting this distributed publishing model revved up and sustained.

From our discussion, there appear to be two primary working models -
the multi-tech/multi-space approach/aggregation (Boreal) and the
unitary space, multi-tech syndication approach (our Issues Forums).

I recall a day when online news sites attempted to give online
publishing spaces to community groups on a shared platform owned by
the paper, but I'd call that an "information island" brochure approach
unless "what's new" is pulled into a stream that is presented to lots
of people somewhere. I think most of those efforts died as larger
community groups began to publish on their own.

In our case, the "community stream" seeks to get information from
groups that just do not have the capacity maintain a fresh web site to
at least publish online in lowest common denominator ways. We are
trying to convince community organizations to simply get in the habit
of sending an e-mail to a community forum and if they have in it,
attach the poster they stuck up on cork boards in the community.
Drafting: http://pages.e-democracy.org/Issues_Forums_for_organizations

If you have more lessons to share, consider joining -
http://e-democracy.org/locals - or posting on the groups where you
received this query.

Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Feel free to add my email contact to your blast lists or when you have news. I try to post the items to this blog and elsewhere.

Furthermore, if you want to be a "running mate" and want to post directly to this blog, let me know.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to comment here on an issue Danna Mackenzie so well explains in
her post on the "Community Stream" thread.

It takes people a long time to learn how to use new networks. They
simply don't think to do so, unless "how to use the network" is
demonstrated to them.

The lead person in the network can't maintain all the posting because
that sends the message that only this person should be posting. Besides,
the lead person is also learning "how" to use the network and what it's
really good for, and what doesn't work.

People in general lack confidence online, they don't like to join new
groups, and they don't like to write any messages into public spaces. I
did some research last year about that, here in New Zealand. Internet
use is high here, 78% of households in this survey are Internet
connected. Of those, 81% were on broad-band.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html

"Eleven of respondents were members of discussion lists. six on one list
each, the other 5 on multiple lists. Half of these lists were run by
clubs or NGO groups and were interest based. (health, environmental or
community action). The other lists were professional groups, communities
of practice, or in-house corporate lists. "

I'm not interviewing the randomly selected user from each house, I'm
talking to the most active user. Even so, social network membership was
well below what I expected.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html#social

It is my view that joining behaviors are the beginning of one's online
education. Many people have survived 10 years of Internet use and have
never learned joining behaviors If they don't join groups, their
exposure to new ideas is limited and their learning rate is low.

I met one man who had been online for 10 years and didn't know what spam
was. "I've never had any," he said. In 10 years he had only ever written
to 7 people.







.


John Veitch
Papanui, Christchurch
About John Veitch: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/johnsveitch

Mark Rauterkus said...

Those in New Zealand do love their fences.

Anonymous said...

I want to comment here on an issue Danna Mackenzie so well explains in
her post on the "Community Stream" thread.

It takes people a long time to learn how to use new networks. They
simply don't think to do so, unless "how to use the network" is
demonstrated to them.

The lead person in the network can't maintain all the posting because
that sends the message that only this person should be posting. Besides,
the lead person is also learning "how" to use the network and what it's
really good for, and what doesn't work.

People in general lack confidence online, they don't like to join new
groups, and they don't like to write any messages into public spaces. I
did some research last year about that, here in New Zealand. Internet
use is high here, 78% of households in this survey are Internet
connected. Of those, 81% were on broad-band.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html

"Eleven of respondents were members of discussion lists. six on one list
each, the other 5 on multiple lists. Half of these lists were run by
clubs or NGO groups and were interest based. (health, environmental or
community action). The other lists were professional groups, communities
of practice, or in-house corporate lists. "

I'm not interviewing the randomly selected user from each house, I'm
talking to the most active user. Even so, social network membership was
well below what I expected.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html#social

It is my view that joining behaviors are the beginning of one's online
education. Many people have survived 10 years of Internet use and have
never learned joining behaviors If they don't join groups, their
exposure to new ideas is limited and their learning rate is low.

I met one man who had been online for 10 years and didn't know what spam
was. "I've never had any," he said. In 10 years he had only ever written
to 7 people.


.


John Veitch
Papanui, Christchurch
About John Veitch: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/johnsveitch