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I am Elizabeth Nolan and I have been working as Partnership Intern here at OneWorld US this Fall. On Wednesday October 11th , I attended "Development Information Workgroup Event: Blogs, Wikis, and Social Networking Tools" organized by SID ( Society for International Development).
Joe Pringle of Forum One Communications facilitated a lively and informative introduction to many of emerging tools that have often been discussed at previous Peer Learnings. The Workgroup was intended to be both an overview as well provide examples for possible implementation in the International Development Field. Below I have outlined the major topics with a few interesting points, new information and links that may be of interest.
Overall, I thought the presentation was a descriptive overview of the new emerging technologies. Non-profits must invest time into seeing what works and what does not. The ground rules of Marketing 101 must not be forgotten when first getting into these new tools. Perhaps, because of the newness of all this , it seems that that are few examples of the tested case studies for international development.
It was a double edge sword that so many turned up for this workgroup. On one hand , it illustrates a willingness and embrace of new technology among the field. However, I would have appreciated hearing the attendees personal experiences. Afterwards , I was left wondering, how does this new modality of two way communication technology ( web 2.0) shape the " donor" and the" receiver" relationship in international development? I also would have liked to hear more caveats or new issues that emerge when using model.
Pringle touched upon the following:
A. Blogs:
1. 50-200 million exist, 8,000 daily
2. Technorati a great blog search engine that helps you find what you are looking for amongst that 8,000.
3. Examples (in the International Development World):
i. World Bank: Sick and tired of being "misunderstood" the much beloved World Bank started a blog as a new, more informal channel. Pringle commented that this shows a certain about of openness and willingness to listen to one's constituents.
ii. Global Development : another example of organization opening up to another in a less traditional way.
4. Issues : Anonymity concerns- One participant posed that this to be in issue in his line of work in international journalism in political restrictive area. In other words, it is a hard sell to independent journalist who already has a difficult time writing about a repressive government, The general (well educated) conses was that that is very difficult retrace a trail of existence. Even with a court order ( unless you are the recording industry) to pinpoint who exactly is posting or commenting from where.
B. Content Generation : Wikis, etc
1. Wikis and Wikipedia: it was suggested that nonprofits can set up their own wiki on their organization. Check out Gather.com's ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
2. You Tube/Google Video ( not sure how the same or different those two are these days...) - offers a great venue to showcase video images that perhaps' your organization's bandwidth can not accommodate. Check out Refugees International Video on the Crisis on Darfur
C. RSS feeds and other content managment related goodies
1. 30-50% of all news online data comes form RSS feeds
2. Examples: Edgeio This site was given as another way to organize information. It is a private sector example. But,honestly, I am not entirely clear on the objectives of this type of tool. Any ideas ?
3. Tagging:
i. Examples: del.icio.us and digg : both sites are slated as Social Bookmarking
ii. Issues: Can there be a balance between a standard taxonomy/controlled vocab and ease of usability when organizing information ( This conversation lasted awhile with the trained librarians and the DIY tech junkies trying to see each other's POV. That always makes for interesting discourse )
D. In house collaboration tools
1. Examples: Google Docs and Spreadsheets- multiple users can work on a document and the edits will be labeled, password protected, alternative to sending files back and from via e-mail
2. Examples- recommended Web conferencing tools ( ASAP , Web-ex )
3. Issues: On can these help for remote field work ( i.e. data gathering ) ? Cell phone technology