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· I'm in the Czech Republic ·

I'm away on holidays at the moment in the Czech Republic, so no posts for the next couple of weeks I'm afraid. But here's some photos of what I've been up to the past few days :)


Created with flickrSLiDR.

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Thursday July 17, 2008

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· Social Tech ·

I've posted occasionally about Social Tech, a bunch of non-profit web people who meet up and chat (online and offline) about non-profit web stuff. And other things. We drink beer too.

Well, we're getting serious as we've just launched a website. It only has two pages at the moment, but the idea behind it is that people can join us without having to have a Facebook account (our Facebook group was the only way people could find out about us until now).

So if you're an in-house ICT person at a social change organisation, please feel welcome to join us!

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Friday July 11, 2008

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· Weekly activist inspiration ·

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Friday July 11, 2008

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· Coming soon: Australian government online? ·

AGIMO released a report in the last few days: "Consulting with Government - online".

Here's the interesting bits:

...When it came to actually participating in a Government forum, there was evidence to suggest that people who are not already engaged in online and political discussions would not actually participate ... While most participants considered the consultation blog a good idea in theory, few thought they would personally contribute to it in practice.

And this ...

Respondents were enthusiastic about real time 'web chats' with Ministers, where people could pose questions and see them answered online.

So ... the recommendations from this report are:

ONE: ... "the Australian Government should consider establishing an Australian Government online consultation forum, to complement existing forms of community consultation."

TWO: Following a trial period, the forum mentioned above should "evaluate citizen and government participation and usage and, if appropriate, consider progressing to an interactive consultation forum." This is where the blogs and online discussions come in.

Hopefully the Government will "consider" this forum soon so we can test it out and see if it works for the citizens of Australia.

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Wednesday July 9, 2008

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· OzPoliCon 2008 ·

Australia's first politico bloggers and online activists conference, OzPoliCon will be held on October 18.

The purpose of the conference is to share information, experiences and knowledge about online activism, campaigning methods and techniques; which of course involves politics organised and unorganised. It is also an opportunity to discuss current trends in technology use and online issue-based and election campaigning, electronic civil disobedience and Australia's Internet and communications laws.

In the interests of environmental sustainability and because we're all connected, this conference will be streamed live in real time. So although the conference is being organised in Melbourne, you don't need to travel further than your own desk to take part.

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Monday July 7, 2008

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· Interview by Maxine of Web Directions ·

This week it's NAIDOC week, so Maxine of Web Directions interviewed me about ANTaR's online advocacy work. This interview is cross-posted on the Web Directions blog.

Did you start at ANTaR in your current role, or did you morph into it from a more traditional web role? I’m interested to know how much awareness there is in the non-profit sector of the potential in online campaigning, in going well beyond simply having a web site and maybe accepting donations online.

I started at ANTaR in my current role. ANTaR’s approach to the web is pretty unique for a nonprofit, in that the organisation employs a full-time staff member (me!) to manage online campaigns. Apart from the large activist organisations like Greenpeace, or those that focus specifically on web campaigns like GetUp!, online campaigners are pretty rare in Australia. It’s more common for somebody in a web manager or community campaigner role to do some online campaigning work as part of their role.

One of the primary roles of a campaigner, regardless of whether you campaign online or offline, is to raise awareness in the community about an issue. But awareness-raising isn’t enough: we also need to build relationships with people and encourage them to effect change where they can. Often this means we’re asking people to put pressure where it is needed (e.g. by getting in touch with their local MP) in order to get something to change for the better.

Generally, youth-run organisations, and those that focus on the environment and/or human rights seem to use the web more effectively for campaigning than other nonprofits. There are exceptions of course, such as Movember, and the Raise The Bar campaign in NSW.

My guess is that some organisations don’t use the web for campaigning because they don’t have much time or money, and so they put all their resources into providing core services in the organisation’s area of expertise. On the other hand, there are some organisations with plenty of resources, but conservative marketing policies mean that they hesitate to get involved in online campaigning because it might damage the organisation’s brand, or because they can’t see how they will get an adequate return on their investment. But as we all know, these problems aren’t unique to the non-profit sector :)

Which social networking platforms do you focus your energies on at ANTaR and how did you choose them?

Our main focus is on Facebook and MySpace at the moment, and we also use Flickr and YouTube a little. We use platforms that will enable us to reach a lot of people and build relationships with them. Tools have to be fairly mainstream among our target audience before we go there, so unfortunately Twitter hasn’t made it onto the list yet but we’re keeping a close eye on it :)

Last year I came up with a formula to help an organisation decide which online tools to use, based on how much time, money and knowledge is required. It’s meant to help an organisation decide whether the amount of effort they put into using a particular platform is worth the effect they’re likely to see, and the results are different for every organisation. You can see how it works in this blog post

How do you actually work these platforms?

In the early days, I was scanning blogs through Technorati to find people who were writing well-considered blog posts on MySpace about Indigenous issues, and then “friending” them. After a while, people started finding us because they were stumbling across our bulletin posts or comments on other friends’ pages, so we didn’t need to use Technorati any more to reach out to new people. Now my focus is on building relationships with our current friends. I find that if you have an ongoing friendship with people who are sympathetic to your cause, they are more likely to offer help than if you approach somebody from out of the blue. I put this theory to the test on MySpace a couple of months ago, and it worked because ANTaR won a MySpace Impact Award worth $10,000. We would not have won that award if our strategy had been different.

Facebook is completely different to MySpace. The ANTaR Facebook group is focussed on the Sea of Hands because I felt that people would be more likely to join a campaign than an organisation on Facebook. That group has grown partly by telling everyone I know about the group, and then those people forwarding it on to their friends. I also participate in discussions on related Facebook groups such as the Close the Gap campaign group (closing the life expectancy between Indigneous and non-Indigenous Australians), which leads some people to the Sea of Hands group too.

Check out ANTaR on MySpace and Facebook.

Any tips you’ve learned for working more efficiently and getting the best returns for time spent?

Yeah - don’t visit Facebook or MySpace more than twice a day!

What sort of returns can a non-profit expect to see from employing someone like you to engage with online communities in this way? Where can they expect to have successes? How long will it take?

This is still a reasonably new area, we’re working it out as we go along, same as everybody else. There’s a few of us who blog about online campaigning methods, return on investment, that kind of thing, so we share what we learn on our blogs and there’s a group of non-profit web people in Sydney and Melbourne (called Social Tech) that meets up once a month to chat about this kind of stuff.

I guess organisations can expect to have success if they are dedicated to building relationships with people. People are more likely to give your organisation favours, to get more involved, to donate, to want to find out more if they have a good relationship with somebody in the organisation. Relationship building takes a long time, and it doesn’t always translate into measurable returns, but it really is absolutely necessary, otherwise your efforts to get people involved are pretty random.

How long does it take? It’s a long-term thing! You should only campaign online because you’re passionate about an issue and enjoy talking to people about it … generally, most people have a pretty good bullshit meter so you have to be sincere. You also have to be patient … bringing about social change can and does take years, so don’t expect to see big results within the first six months (or maybe even the first six years)!

In your experience, what type of non-profit will a foray into online campaigning work best for?

Any non-profit that needs public support for an issue should consider campaigning online. It works best for campaigns that have a clear message, know where their target demographic is hanging out online, and has the resources not only to do the online work, but follow up with supporters that want to get more involved.

How can you evaluate the success of a project and when should you start doing it?

One of the most common ways of evaluating a campaign is counting the number of people who have taken action. This is a pretty good indication of whether (a) the public is interested in an issue and (b) enough pressure is being applied in the right places (i.e. on the person or group that has the power to change things).

Another way we can evaluate a campaign is to see what effect we’ve had in changing government policy. A good example of this is the Close The Gap campaign - made up of a coalition of organisations including ANTaR - which resulted in positive changes to government policy. There were several elements that made up this campaign, the primary public action was for people to sign a Close The Gap pledge on some of the coalition partners’ websites including ANTaR, Oxfam, GetUp and HREOC. ANTaR also asked supporters to email personalised letters to their state and federal politicians (through our online Sea of Hands) and we have had informal feedback from MPs and their staff that these emails contributed to the successful outcome of the campaign. If politicians feel they have the support of the community, they will take action.

We also monitor our website analytics pretty closely, looking for trends and working out why particular campaigns, media releases or search terms are more popular than others.

However there are some things that are very difficult to measure. If a person changes their attitude towards Indigenous Australians, how does ANTaR find out? And how do we know that it’s as a direct result of something that we have told them online, or as a result of something else?

We recently ran a campaign “Racism Makes Me Sick”, which focussed on the effects of racism on the health of Indigenous Australians. When the life expectancy for Indigenous Australians improves (currently an Indigenous Australian will live for 17 years less than a non-Indigenous Australian), then we’ll know that our work has been a success. In fact, when there is a fair representation of Indigenous Australians in parliament, and when 5% of attendees at Web Directions are Indigenous Australians, then we’ll know that our work has been a success.

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Monday July 7, 2008

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· Carnival of nonprofit consultants, 6 July 08 ·

Solidariti is hosting the carnival of nonprofit consultants this week. We didn't have many entries this week due to Independence Day in the US, but here's two really interesting submissions that both feature mobile communications for non-profits:

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Sunday July 6, 2008

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· The road to e-democracy (and other tales) ·

In April, The Economist published a special report, The Electronic Bureaucrat.

The report is mostly about providing government services online (yikes, what a scary project that would be) but there were a few things I took from it that were relevant to online democracy and online activism.

On the government and public service's adoption of technology:

"The benefits will be biggest in countries where officials and politicians are open to pressure and where the citizens are public-spirited to start with. E-government is no magic bullet, but it gives citizens and lobby groups more power to scrutinise government and highlight waste and dishonesty."

- The electronic bureaucrat

On providing e-government to communities that do not have access to the internet:

The hardest question for government is how to deal with the part of the population that will not or cannot go online. Glyn Evans, who runs the e-government effort in Britain's second-biggest city, Birmingham, says he has to deal with a portion of households that are "transient and chaotic", whereas central government in Whitehall imagines a world of "middle-class nuclear families" who move as a single unit. One possible solution would be to give up on this section of the population. If e-government enables the most articulate and productive members of society to save time and money and enjoy better public services, that may be worth having. It may even free officials' energies to take more trouble over the rest. Many governments have adopted that approach by default, although few would admit it.

A second possibility is to try harder to harness technology. Even the poorest of the poor may be able to use a smart card or a mobile phone, giving them a louder voice and a fairer deal. Some time this year the world will pass the point where more than half its population will have a mobile phone. Although mobiles are used mainly as phones and for text messages between customers, they are also powerful computers, offering the previously dispossessed a way into business and finance—and into interacting with public services. M-government (the latest buzzword, now that e-government has lost some of its lustre) allows citizens and the state to deal with each other through pared-down web pages, barcodes sent as pictures and simple text messages.

In some countries digital television offers another way of reaching the computer have-nots. So far, digital-television applications have involved things like voting in game shows or calling up information about a programme. But in principle there is no reason why the same mechanism could not be used by citizens to interact with their governments.

- Making it happen

On online consultation with the public:

As you might expect, the place that makes the most advanced use of technology in promoting public participation is America, where officials now invite online comments from outsiders when they draw up legislation on subjects like environmental protection. A Department of Agriculture draft on organic-food standards, for example, prompted more than 250,000 comments. Yet the expertise mostly comes from a narrow range of specialists.

According to Cary Coglianese, an American e-government expert, imagining that online consultation will breathe new life into democracy "is a bit like imagining that giving automobile owners the ability to download technical manuals and order car parts online would turn a great number of them into do-it-yourself mechanics". Greater involvement by experts may make for more sensible rules, but it will not turn the system of public administration on its head.

- The road to e-democracy

The final paragraph is a hard point for me to take on board, because I believe that online consultation between government and citizens will help rather than hinder this country. Don't show those figures (250,000 comments) to the politicians or they will freak out as they build a mental picture of their workload skyrocketing (or, rather, the workload of their aides and government departments). Perhaps I'm being naive here, but considering the level of citizen participation in the parliamentary process today (i.e. very low), surely a large and diverse pool of opinions can only be an improvement for democracy in this country?

Hat tip: eGov AU

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Friday June 27, 2008

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· Weekly activist inspiration ·

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Friday June 27, 2008

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· Are you a democratic revolutionary? ·

This week, the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) was held in the US. There is plenty of news online about what was discussed so I'm not going to cover old ground ... except to point this out: An Open Letter to PdF Participants by Matt Leighninger, on techPresident. I'm just publishing what I think are the most salient points (apologies Matt):

...local officials and other kinds of leaders (including online organizers and activists) are attempting many different civic experiments ... to help their communities function more democratically and more effectively.

The best examples of these efforts employ four successful principles:

  1. They recruit people by reaching out through the various groups and organizations to which they belong, in order to assemble a large and diverse "critical mass" of citizens.
  2. They involve those citizens in a combination of small- and large-group discussions: structured, facilitated small groups (either online or face-to-face or both) for informed, deliberative dialogue; and large forums for amplifying shared conclusions and moving from talk to action.
  3. They give the people who participate the opportunity to compare values and experiences, and to consider a range of views and policy options.
  4. They effect change in a number of ways: by applying citizen input to policy and planning decisions; by encouraging change within organizations and institutions; by creating teams to work on particular action ideas; by inspiring and connecting individual volunteers; or all of the above.

...simply making more information available online, and providing more arenas for people to comment on it, is unlikely to produce changes ...

Online commentators could simply become another chattering class, another set of voices trying to pressure public officials and dig out damning details. Without attending to the other elements of successful democratic governance – recruitment, deliberation, facilitation, action planning, etc. – the democratic impact of the new technology may be positive but limited.

Making politics more "open" is a terrific priority – but if that’s all you do, then you’ll just be making a space for yourselves at the political table and not welcoming in the people with less time, less education, less confidence, less faith in government and community, and/or a lower level of technological skills.

Your response to this may be: "So what! We’re opening things up – if people don’t care enough to participate, we’ll govern without them!" If so, it would be helpful to say this now; it would clarify that online commentators and activists constitute a powerful new interest group in politics.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s what you want. The alternative – clarifying the role you want to play as democratic revolutionaries – will require more attention to what is happening on the ground in local politics, not just what is happening in the ether of the presidential campaign.

I've heard a lot of winging about politicians not engaging the public online. I even do it myself occasionally. But recently I've realised that we practitioners need to take a leadership role and get politicians thinking about how they might engage the public in the way that suits all: politicians and their staffers, government departments and citizens. Otherwise it may be a very long time until we see a participatory democracy in this country. So ... are you going to be a democratic revolutionary and join me on this journey?

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Thursday June 26, 2008

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