Yearly Reboot
Last week the Reboot conference took place. Number 11 in the series had 'Action' as a theme. It is the one conference that Elmine and I keep returning to every year. To me this year Reboot had the same sort of excellent vibes that Reboot 7.0 in 2005 had. That Reboot edition started a lot of things for me, so that makes me curious about the things Reboot11 will set in motion. Bruce Sterling in his closing talk asked 'Eleven reboots? When will you get to a stable system?'. Some systems work best when they're not stable, I think.

Scope
To me the whole Action theme this year was about your radius of action more than actual acts. The big picture talks were as much about that to me, as were the more specific presentations and discussion sessions in the other rooms. So Matt Webb talking about scope in his opening key-note was spot on for me. Matt talked about how big visions and dreams (touch the moon with your fingertip) look differently when realized in a centralized command structure or in a decentralized network-sourced effort. Calling upon the Reboot participants to give the world a new 'macroscope' by taking 100 hour steps, he brings action and change down to the level where you can act confidently now. Hundred hours, a day a week for the three months of summer will be enough to get you significantly deep into any subject.

Other sessions, such as Lee Bryant's contribution on creating the 'Reboot mythology' to position ourselves in a narrative that has a higher chance of working change, struck the same chord: big general pictures to be immediately translated into action in the here and now.

Reboot was not mostly action: though there were all kinds of practical projects, it was still a conference of course, and that is where people basically share stories. Some of those stories were however made hands-on (the Arduino workshop e.g.) or of the 'How to' format. It was about action, giving us all the pointers and the means to define and extend our scope, our radius of action.

Sphere of Influence
Two Reboots ago I created this picture to illustrate why we so often do not succeed in taking the first step towards change. It is about how flow can be found within your radius of action, or sphere of influence as I called it. There are two fig leafs for inaction at play, I find in my work: making ourselves too small, and making ourselves too important.

In the former, you say you would want to change but put forward a version of the problem that is simply too big to handle, allowing yourself the excuse to do nothing. In the latter you say the problem is something you can handle, but only if all others listen to you to get it done (which is the traditional centralized way of doing things, and how President Kennedy got to touch the moon with his fingertip). Again this is used as excuse for inaction as 'obviously' it is impossible to get all others on board (= back to the 'too big to handle' end of the spectrum).

As I said back then, you don't need full control to reach your goals however. Flow is to be found by operating within your sphere of influence, and cutting your actions to a size that fits that, while at the same time trying to push at the boundaries of your sphere of influence. My working definition of knowledge is 'the ability to act', and my working definition of learning is increasing that ability. So Matt Webb's call for 100hr efforts, and Lee Bryant's call to create a different narrative, that I mentioned before, fell on receptive ears with me.

Why I sponsored Reboot: scope
Quite a number of people asked me why on earth I was sponsoring Reboot as an individual. Was it because I hoped to land clients? Was it marketing? No. What did I hope to 'get out of it'? Nothing. Reboot has been a great source of inspiration and learning for me in the past years. I credit Reboot, and the extended network of people around it as a significant part of why I can do what I do as a professional. Supporting Reboot financially was for me a way to give something back. It helped make sure that the conference could take place, and therefore had an impact on people that matter to me, and therefore had an impact on myself. It was its own return. It was within my scope, so I took action.

From the Preboot boatride until the Postboot street party, I had a great time. Thomas, Torben, Peter, Nikolaj and all those others involved pulled off another rocking Reboot. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: reboot, reboot11, rb11, action, change

Rethink logo during final event (l), Informal drinks (r, by Anja)

Was this group a community? No!
Was this group of teachers a community of practice? Was it a group? I can answer that question with a 'No'. We started with a group of strangers. All came from different departments of Rotterdam University, and did not know each other before. At the end, during the last interviews with group members, at least one (very active and committed) person said that 'it still does not feel like a group to me'. Others were irritated about the (perceived) lack of commitment of other members towards the group, and the way people did not do their agreed upon tasks. Yet other members do not associate the term 'community' with them as a group, but with the fact that we used an on-line platform as part of our exchanges. Also we lost some group members along the way, who for different reasons could not continue their efforts. Also remarks were made about face to face meetings that indicate they were sometimes viewed as staff meetings or other more formal settings. All in all, these were signs there was not as much cohesion as we hoped to achieve.

During hands-on session (l), and me showing my terrible hand writing (r, by Jet Houwers)

Was this group a community? Yes!
Was this group of teachers a community of practice? Was it a group? I can answer that question with a 'Yes'. Part of what one can see as sign of not being a community, are in fact signs of community. Having different layers of involvement (up to and including the point of withdrawing from the group), and especially having people care about other member's level of involvement and commitment are signs of feeling a relationship with those others. Likewise people were not reluctant to talk about each other's behaviour in the group, which requires a certain level of group safety. Also on their own initiative little sub groups were formed that worked together on different tasks. There was an enormous amount of constructive criticism and positive feedback, especially in the exchanges in the platform. The amount of energy exhibited by the core of the group clearly spoke of community forming to me, filling e.g. the roles of opinion leaders, group influencers etc. Another member was instrumental as a facilitator to other people's progress, even if he did not really notice it himself. Hands-on sessions where talk was replaced by doing were experienced as very stimulating: 'I still remember exactly everything I learned that day'. There are examples where specific group members were essential in personal break through events for other members resulting in real shifts in attitude, as well as examples of people consciously intervening in the group's dynamics on a very personal level. But most telling of all is the fact that the group largely wants to go on, even now the project has ended. Going on and at the same time welcoming in additional people into the group. In parallel with the project a large group of colleagues has found themselves in Yammer.com (Twitter for within your organization) where exchanges are taking place, adding different layers of involvement yet again. All those are most certainly signs of community forming (creating rhythm, spaces and layers of involvement, and being actively inviting). Had we put the group under more pressure regarding the intensity of working together we probably would have speeded the forming of relationships up, but at the cost of attaching it more completely to the specific context of the project. It would have heightened the risk of the group falling apart after the project once the pressure that kept it together vanished. Whatever happens now is of their own choosing, based on the context they created themselves in the past year. Part of the community building effort of the past year thus will only be reaped after the end of the project, and with people that weren't part of the project. That's an important transfer aspect, and transfer of knowledge was a key part of our goals.

During drinks (l), Screen showing the platform (r, by Anja)

The role of our online platform
Right from the start we used a Drupal based online platform for our interaction between face to face sessions. It resembles the set-up of Howard Rheingold's Social Media Classroom in certain aspects (not a coincidence as we compared notes in June last year). Over the course of a year the dozen members wrote over 6900 entries in the platform. Interestingly enough eventually entries were posted during all hours of a 24 hour period. The entries show a classic power-law pattern. Some posted over 400 times, others posted only once or twice. Those that were posting only sporadically mentioned different reasons for doing so. The lay-out of the site was lacking contrast for easy reading (we originally styled it in black to give it an underground look and feel), some found having multiple navigational aids to get to the same information (in stead of having a clear hierarchical organization of content) confusing. Others had their own blogs they used to chronicle their work, even though it meant missing out on much of the interaction with the rest of the group. Also there was a specific group that at first was reluctant to share much on-line, as well as put a picture of themselves alongside it: they had been raised to be modest and unobtrusive.
The platform was intensively used for mostly constructive criticism and positive and encouraging feedback. Though at times members complained about not getting feedback on contributions at all. It was also used as a sandbox, to learn yourself how to embed video's and photo's for instance.

Front page of our platform 'De Werkplaats' (the workshop), in 'underground black'

All in all the platform served an important role during the year. I certainly underestimated the time and energy needed to be able to adapt the platform to emerging needs over time. We planned to start the platform low-key and then add features when the group wanted them. In practice I only came around to a few minor changes early on (adding a bit of functionality, and fixing search issues in the platform), as I needed to spend virtually all my available time on working with the group itself. Ideally we would have had someone running the platform as a seperate role, working in tandem with me as group facilitator and the project leader, so different roles would not hinder eachother in competition for time and energy.

Two other things of note. After the project ended formally early April, no activity took place anymore in the platform. We resorted to e-mail to make sure that the information concerning the final group event we organized early June was received by all (including those that did not use the platform frequently). Second, the group that wants to go on now that the project has ended, has indicated that they would like to continue to use the platform, albeit in somewhat altered fashion. I have promised to work with them to make that happen, and will also keep the domain and hosting available to them.

Tags: hzap08, hogeschoolrotterdam, cop, communityofpractice, socialmediaclassroom, smc

Citizens and coders need to take more of a constructive activist stance
Like I remarked last year, it is one thing to complain about government doing things 'wrong' and 'not getting it', and treating government as one organizational body, but quite another to actually formulate what you want and what you are prepared to do yourself to get there. This is regardless of the fact that there are civil servants who don't 'get it' at all, and are making mistakes, because when you don't reach out to help them 'get it' they will never know they're not living up to your expectations in the first place. This is regardless of the fact that we often experience stonewalling when asking for more government transparency, because if we don't do whatever already is possible within our own sphere of influence we will never get to the point where the still dominant culture of default opaqueness is changed. Just saying 'yes, but it's the law' is not enough and will not work change, you have to be prepared to act based on it. As large scale political pressure to make this a priority is lacking (unlike e.g. the US currently, or the UK), we need to build pressure ourselves.

Civil Servants need to reach out
At the same time it is key that civil servants who are serious about open gov data let the 'outside' know what they need to move things forward, what we can do to help. Luckily, even in the midst of a lot of confusion over language and what is and what is not a governmental task, last Saturday was a platform for civil servants and coders to find a way to collectively move forward.
I was very pleased to see that a significant group of government employees decided to participate. Government ministries (e.g. Interior, Education, General Affairs) were represented, as well municipalities (e.g. Vught, Utrecht, Den Haag), and different parts of governmental bodies dealing with transparency, ICT or other topics (e.g. ICTU).

Andre Herbrink of Min of Education on open data (left) and Twitter wall back channel (right)

Not just talk, also walk
We not only talked about open data and discussed existing efforts and examples, we walked the talk as well. After Alper giving a short introduction on how to scrape data when the source is not directly available, or there is no API, coders got to work on different ideas and apps that reuse open (or in some cases not so open yet) government data.

Some of the things that people worked on:
An API for the RDW website and database available from OnzeData.nl ('our data'), allowing access to information about cars based on their license plates. Created by Christoph Kempen en Manfred Zielinski. Update: RDW, the government agency involved, is currently actively blocking the API. Proving how slow going this process of transparancy is.

An Android application taking the information about cars available at the RDW, based on the user entering a license plate number. This info is available through a website, but with this app also more directly and quickly on your mobile phone. Built by Ronald v.d. Lingen.

Polirazzi, a website that takes a politician's name and then gives you an overview of any newspaper articles mentioning that politician. Built by Breyten Ernsting, based on an API available at IkRegeer.nl ('I govern') to get the list of current members of parliament and party affiliation.

Discussing meaningful data visualization (l), Breyten and Ronald coding (r)

A way for investigative journalists to detect changes in PDF files published by government. Sometimes small but crucial pieces of info get augmented, changed or edited in already public documents without it being noticed and under the same url and document title. A small group worked on a way of versioning these documents.

An idea to add RIVM environmental data to an iPhone app, and combine it with existing rain radar apps. Reminiscent of the 'smog alarm' website we built as an example earlier.

A open version of the database of the Chamber of Commerce 'who earn more money exploiting their database with your data than the average successful Russian spammer outfit', called OpenKvK. With a demo of life scraping and searching at the end of the afternoon. It also allows automatic creation of a ZIP code database. This is an extremely important dataset (for all kinds of location aware services), that is currently owned by TNT to everybody's chagrin and not in public hands (as an undesirable result of privatizing the mail). Watch OpenKvK.nl for when it's ready (search form not active yet).

Do you know exactly when garbage gets collected in your street? And old paper? Garden refuse? Pascal van Hecke, Hanno Lans and Menno Sman worked on an idea to create an easy site giving you all the info you need based on your zip code and house number. Most intriguing part of their idea was to me their suggestion to crowdsource the needed data scraping: have a few people in each municipality scrape the data relevant and useful to them, and in that way build up national coverage and completeness.

During a session (l), lunch time conversations (r)

I may have missed some other efforts but, am happy to add more if you point out my omissions. I do have one regret though, and that is noone worked with the data of the Ministry of Education. They were present and could have helped explain jargon language etc being used in their sometimes hard to understand API, also they were really eager to see people work with their data, and actively asking for feedback and input.

(More pics in my Flickr stream)

A short video impression (in Dutch) by Elmine Wijnia:

Results we set out to create
We set out to do, and did, 4 things.
1) Get an overview of already available public government data and the people involved
2) Create two examples of how government data can be reused, and be made even more reusable
3) Write a guide on what you need to take into account when opening up your data
4) Propose a scenario for the way forward

Open up your data, it's the law
First it is important to realize that opening up PSI/Government Data is not merely a gesture of good will by branches of government. By law all information and data relating to policies is public, unless there are urgent and severe reasons to not make it public (legal, privacy, national security come to mind). So 'public, unless' is the law, as per the European Directive on PSI, which has been implemented in the corresponding Dutch law, Wet Openbaarheid Bestuur (WOB), as described in this English translation. Open data helps in increasing the transparancy of government, as well as enables new and innovative applications that would not otherwise be possible (thus increasing the value created by collecting the data in the first place)
In practice this does not yet translate widely into pro-actively making information and data available in open standards (also law since April 2008) that mean they can actually be easily used by citizens and private organizations. There are exceptions of course, but in general you have to ask first and hope you get your answer in a usable format.

Open up your data and information at every level you can

Strengthening the network of exceptions to change culture
The people that are currently creating the exceptions (i.e. are pro-actively enabling open government data) are at this moment still largely isolated. Bringing them together, enabling the sharing of experiences is the way forward we proposed. So that the exceptions become more visible, and thus 'normal', so that the civil servants involved are better equipped with arguments and examples to move forward within their own environment, and so that it can be shown they are meeting a real demand of citizens. In our interviews service to citizens turned out to be a core value that can be leveraged towards a pro-actively open government when it comes to information and data.

So strenghtening the network and creating the conditions for forming a community of practice around those interested in opening up government data (civil servants, citizens, organizations alike) is an important aspect of bringing practice in line with the law, and making sure it becomes integrated in the cultural fabric of our government organisations.

As steps towards that we are using the results of our project to both crowd source our efforts, as well as use them as catalysts for network and community building.

Strengthening international ties: presenting our project at EUPS20 at the EU in Brussels, and Open Knowledge Foundation Communia Workshop in London

Putting the results 'out there'
All the results of our project have landed in a Workspace in the Overheid20 webplatform. This platform can be used by both civil servants and others to explore the possibilities of social media / web.20, while staying within the guidelines that are in place for designing and securing government websites. It allows for group forming, both public and closed, and where other people can be invited into.

We also published most of our results in other places, to make it easier to crowdsource further development, and make results easier to link to.
The data sources we identified are now part of the wiki Open Data Overheid where Lex Slaghuis and others were already independently bringing together sources and information.
The two examples of reusing government data we created each have their own website, which includes an explanation of both the work as well as the reasoning behind it.
The guide we wrote for civil servants involved with open government is based on the interviews we had during the project, and is now open for review and feedback at Vrije Data (free data). The first round of feedback will be written into the guide on June 20th, but more feedback and additions are welcome after that date as well. The guide adresses the definition of open and reusable data, goes into technological, organizational and legal aspects, as well as explaining the importance of open data.

Examples of reuse
We created two examples of reusing gov data. One is the 'school finder' that allows searching more intuitively for schools based on your zip code. The other is a 'smog alarm' that shows you smog predictions in your area, as well as sends alerts via Twitter to you if predicted values pass a threshold you indicated. We also made sure that the two examples output data in ways that make it more reusable, using microformats, giving data unique URLs that can be referred to and feeding sensor data into Pachube, the international source for worldwide open sensor data for instance.

Smog Alarm and School Finder screenshots.

Activities to enable the network
Several activities are under way that serve as catalysts to bring the network together. Last Saturday saw 'Hack the Government' (a follow up of last year's GovCamp we organized) where civil servants and coders spent a day discussing issues around open data, as well as create on the spot several applications reusing government data. Two government ministries are providing funding to realize good ideas around reusing government data. The Ministry for the Interior is organizing a competition 'Dat zou handig zijn!' ('That would be great to have'), which is similar to the UK initiative Show us a Better Way. The Ministry for Education is also making money available for ideas around the specific reuse of the mass of educational data they are making available already.
At the end of this month a BarCamp is taking place around the (strict) web styling guidelines in place for government websites and how social media /web 2.0 functionality can be used and implemented in accordance with these guidelines (or how the guidelines should change). Meanwhile discussion is going on in lots of places, that we are aware of. In different ministries, but also provincial governments, as well as in community websites like Ambtenaar 2.0 ('civil servants 2.0'). Hopefully the Ministry for the Interior can continue to play a role in stimulating the network around Open Data, both with activities as well as brokering contacts and incentives. Also we'll keep trying to learn from initiatives abroad, as well as share our experiences (especially since the culture of our public sphere is very different from the one in e.g. the UK) in moving forward with open PSI and data. To that extent I also proposed a session at the Reboot conference, to bring together European experiences in this field.

Coders last Saturday discussing applications for government data

The aim is to let the members explore and learn in a self-steered setting, as a diversification of the internal training methods they have on offer for their employees. Subject matter is how to adapt their teaching to the digital reality their students are already living in, and the digital reality in place in the fields of work they are educating their students for.

We spent a full year exploring and Freddy Veltman worked with us the entire year, as we were her subject of empirical study for her PhD research into how professionals develop themselves. My own role was as designer of the original work format, as facilitator to the group and moderator in the group's online platform, and as subject matter expert for all things social media.
Last Thursday all members of the group presented their work to colleagues and management. A project that has been very dear to me has now ended. Time to look back for a bit.

The Big Five
During the year we realized as a group we were getting results and learning things in five different areas, that were relevant to Rotterdam University. These five areas were dubbed The Big Five by one of the group members, and the term immediately stuck:

Authenticity (Bringing your teaching as close as possible to reality. Real problems, real results, real work formats, making everything count.)
Co-creation (Involving both your students and colleagues in each and every stage of both development and execution of your teaching modules.)
Competences (What's needed for a teacher with regard to the first two points, and to do your own exploratory and networked learning as a teacher)
Knowledge Creation (What we learned that can be packaged for others and can be transferred to others in the organisation)
Work Form (How the free format self-steered learning group worked for us, how it can be used both in teaching as well as in growing professionally)

There is a lot to say about the five points above, but that warrants multiple posts, so I will not go into it now. In stead I want to focus on the effect the project had on the participants and on their students.

Informal meet-up this spring, Working session (by Anja)

Change your work, change yourself
I doubt that at the start the participants knew what they were getting themselves into. Most of them thought they embarked on a project to modernize their teaching. But all, including me and the project manager, ended up (re-)shaping our skills and our attitudes in unexpected ways. I'll let a few quotes taken from the final interviews with group members speak for themselves.

"I rediscovered the fun of learning. I learned that merely working to improve my teaching is a boost in enjoying my work and be motivated all by itself."
"Doing things, acting on thoughts, gives a lot of space in my mind"
"I now have the guts to experiment."
"I am sad that I don't get to lecture as much anymore, I enjoyed that so much. But I am now much more involved with my students, much more in touch with them. I've started loving my students so much more."
"The relief of being able to ask anything in the group, however small or 'stupid'. All questions were good questions."
"I've lost my fear of technology, my fear of making mistakes using technology."
"I was brought up to be modest, to think that sharing was exhibitionist. I've learned to share so much more."
"Glad we had an entire year. Real change needs time."
"I came to change my teaching module, I left having changed my world."
"I feel closer to my colleagues and to my students. The contact is much more real."
"I've learned to own my work. My primary concern are my students, everything else is secondary. I would get away with doing much less, but that would make me feel completely miserable."
"It's been over 35 years I had so much fun learning so much."
"It's amazing to learn from and connect to people all around the world. It's inconceivable how much that means to me."
"I almost exhausted myself in the first months. Spending time on this project until 2 or 3 am. But I needed to."
"This project made my entire job much more fun. The space and freedom to explore and experiment."

The list goes on. Mind you, this is all irrespective of the fact that it has been a bumpy ride for the group at times. Harsh words have been exchanged between members, frustrations and tempers flared. This was no walk in the park.

Change your work, change your students
Group members also have a lot to tell about how changing the teaching modules, changing their own teaching skills and attitudes, impacted their students and the results the students achieved. In general appreciation for the courses went up, results stayed the same or went up as well. Especially for those modules where books and theoretical material were dealt with as resources while immediately applying that knowledge in the course. Students found themselves more challenged, more involved and having more understanding of the role of the teacher. Again a few quotes, from both teachers and students to wet your appetite:

"My students don't miss my lecturing at all."
"It's amazing what you get back from your students when you let go."
"Being open to my students that I am experimenting myself, actively inviting their feedback, and the amount of recognition you get from that."
"When I met a student some time later, and asked her how the course I adapted had effect on her, she started to cry."
"Amazing what we learned in three weeks. I now understand so much better what my future profession is about."

Me and Jet working, group working session (both by Ernst),

I'll go into results on the Big Five and examples more in consequent postings. I feel privileged to have been part of this project.

Technorati Tags: hzap08, communityofpractice, learningcommunity, hogeschoolrotterdam

Robert has been posting in parallel with a number of workshops organized by him and other members of the Queen Street Commons, which is a coworking space in the center of Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, Canada. (Elmine and I visited there last summer)

Drinks at Robert's home on PEI last summer (left), and the Queenstreet Commons in Charlottetown (right)

Workshops like those are important for several reasons. First of all because more and more people are working as independent professionals. Second, because it seems that what makes traditional organizations work is now making them fail in a more complex environment and a world that is now much more clearly the closed resource system it already always was, rendering the eternal-growth-paradigm of our economy and monetary system simply impossible.

As to the first point, the number of independent professionals in the Netherlands started to rise sharply in 2000. This was the moment where people here were sufficiently connected via internet (>75% of companies in 2000, now ~100%) and mobile communications (>67% of people in 2000, now 115%, i.e. 19M subscriptions on 16M5 people), to be able to loosen yourself from incumbent structures and still stay in touch with the people and resources needed to do your tasks. (See this earlier posting on workplace) As a result over half of all registered businesses in the Netherlands are now in fact independent professionals (434.710 out of 797.840 in January 2008, equaling 5% of the work force.). Of those independent professionals 60% routinely work together with other independents on projects, and another 25% want to do so. The number of independent professionals has risen even more in the last three months as larger companies are getting hit by the recession.

In his series Robert talks about a lot of points that also came up in conversations when I was deciding to leave my job and go independent. Robert's postings are:

Living the Freelancers Life, Is this for you?
Security and Peace - Why these cannot exist in a job.
Leaving your job - Marketing - It's all about relationships.
Freedom - coworking - sleeping at night.
How to grow, but not grow your headaches.
Managing your life and your clients.
Working at home.
Control and adventure.

My home office (left), and two independents, Elmine and Marko, working together (right)

Go read them all. In one or two follow-up postings I will discuss some of those aspects mentioned by Robert in relation to my own decision to go independent in the fall of 2007, and how I've been working since.

Technorati Tags: independency, independent, freelancers, freelancing, pei, queenstreetcommons, robertpaterson

Other projects explored the way people see pets and toys, buying dead animals from taxidermists and preparing them as well worn stuffed toys. The most discussed project is probably how she killed her old and dying cat herself(in stead of having the vet put her down) and use the skin to turn it into a handbag. This caused some public uproar, upon which she pointed out we have no qualms using leather for bags.

Her confrontational projects result in large amounts of hate mail being addressed at her. She collected all her hate mail from 2004-2008 and with her colleague Coralie Vogelaar researched what information about the hate mailers was publicly available through simple searches on the internet. Starting with the e-mail addresses they searched out Facebook profiles, blog URLs, photos etc. To find out if those people are "as scary as their e-mails, or just like" any of us. From all that material a book has been created, released this week, which shows the piece of hate mail and then a picture and other info about the mailer. Eighty percent of her hate mail originated in the US, and most of the more vicious hate mail came from younger people and was being sent late at night (sender's time). At the same time there are plenty 'soccer moms' out there who show a hateful side in their e-mails.

I ordered the resulting book today. I find it intriguing to see the hate mail connected to the every day lives of their authors. A type of context collapse that the senders probably thought wouldn't happen. The tensions between privacy and publicness are also worth exploring,as they are shown to be more paradox than opposites.
The book's existence also raises questions about authorship, copyright etc. Those discussions are part of the book as well, in the form of essays by other authors.

Some hate mailers and their photos

(pictures are taken from a news paper article from Dutch newspaper article NRCnext on May 19th.)

Tags: hatemail, contextcollapse, tinkebell, privacy

FabLabs operate from the notion that designs and experiences are shared globally and build locally based on whatever material is available. Design global, build local. However thus far we think the amount of sharing being done can be improved on two important dimensions.

First, we want to improve the ease with which experiences and projects can be documented. It is hard to ask people visiting the FabLabs to document things after their work, or interrupt them during the flow of their work to do so. Also the sharing of experience between lab managers can be improved, concerning the smooth running of a FabLab etc. It is around these stories, experiences and descriptions that interaction will take place.

Second, we want to improve the way people can connect, locally around a single FabLab, nationally within the ecosystem of personal manufacturing of both FabLabs and other groups, and internationally between both individuals and FabLabs. It is along these relationships within the wider FabLab community that knowledge and experience will flow.

By making initial sharing of content easier we stimulate interaction and the building of relationships. By making connecting to others easier, we stimulate the wider sharing of knowledge. Both dimensions strengthen each other.

During last week's brainstorm session on starting the project at the Amsterdam FabLab

So last week we started a project to create a platform to do just that. It will be a Drupal-based platform. Each FabLab will be able to have their own web presence, but the underlying Drupal fundament will ensure that every FabLab website will be able to pull in content from all other FabLab websites using the Drupal fundament. It also means that when a new FabLab starts operations, it will be able to install a web platform out of the box that immediately gives access to any content they find relevant for themselves. Relevant for instance in terms of the machines they have available, or the languages they want to present content in. It also means being able to grant access to people from throughout the FabLab community. All FabLabs together will create a cloud as it were.

With contributions in time from the FabLabs in Amsterdam and Utrecht, as well as my self (I'm a board member of the Dutch FabLab Foundation), we have enough expertise and resources to get going. FabLabs from Iceland, Norway, Canada and the UK are interested in working with us on this as well. It would be great if we could also involve members of the Drupal community. We will document the project transparantly so all our work will be in English, ensuring the ability for the wider FabLab network to contribute and comment.

We aim at smaller tangible steps in development, that can be implemented piecemeal as they are delivered. First up is creating the initial basic platform and content types needed. On that basis we can start adding functionality. The labs in th Netherlands, due to the high number of FabLab initiatives here, are in a unique position to quickly experiment with using different types of functionality, and iteratively build a modular platform.

Technorati Tags: fablab, drupal, socialnetworking, sharing, project

In stead of slides we had some pictures for my introduction printed on card board, to create a more conversational and engaged atmosphere

In my introduction I started with the notion that my grandparents were part of a very strong local network (noaberschap, as described earlier) of mutual help and assistance, as existed in most rural areas in the Netherlands in their time. This network with lots of strong relationships enabled them to live in their own home until high age, surrounded by people who gave them the care they needed, even though we as family members did not live nearby.
With increasing mobility in the population it has become much harder to maintain these networks however, as they are tightly connected to geograpic location as well as depend on people being part of the network for a long time.

At the same time our internet and mobile communications connected world has seen the emergence of global networks of people around shared interests, problems, and any other aspect of life you can think of. These networks are largely unconnected to geographic location and enable rapid group forming. Over time stronger ties form within these networks, but their strength lie mostly in making lots of weaker ties explicit, and maintaining context over time.

Is there a way to connect these more widely spread on-line social networks, to the local geographic context around a client? Can we strengthen local networks and make them more resilient that way? After all, 70% of the Dutch population maintains at least one profile on one social networking platform. From different examples it seems obvious that is the case. Platforms like Patient Opinion in the UK suddenly let you see who else is using the services of the same health care institutions you are, potentially creating a network out of those that would normally only shortly see each other in waiting rooms, if ever. It shows weak connections that were invisible otherwise.
The Japanese system of Hureai Kippu (aka Fureai Kippu), though not essentially an on-line network but a parallel currency, allows you to build up 'credit' points by helping out in the care of someone in your neighbourhood. That credit you can spend either on care for yourself later when you need it, or on a family member somewhere else in the country. The system creates more local ties, and at the same time allow family members an active role in providing care to their loved ones even if they are geographically further away. By collecting and using credit in this system that way, local networks are actually strengthened in 2 places. Where you are, and where your family member is.
Many more examples exist where different aspects of health care have been turned into a social object for interaction, such as Patients Like Me around your ailments or the prescriptions you need to take.

In the discussion we dug deeper into whether the above seemed recognizable and how this might be meaningful to the health care institutions the participants represented. Lots of ideas were floated on how to involve both family members living further away more, as well as build a more diverse and widespread network of volunteers. Lots of thoughts were expressed about what it takes in terms of values for the professionals involved, and how as an institution you can create the right conditions allowing your professionals to see themselves as individuals in a networked environment.
Two areas will be explored more deeply and thoroughly in the coming weeks. One is the type of values, skills and attitudes needed to open institutions up to their networked environment, and how boards can help create those conditions. The other is what can serve as a social object within the environment of these health care institutions, what can be triggers for interaction with different groups in their environment (like clients, their family members and volunteers).

Not the way I would like to make screenshots

The problem is there doesn't seem to be a good screenshot app for my phone, the G1 Android or Google Phone.

There are currently two ways to make a screenshot on my G1.
The first is making use of the developer kit and using the debugging monitor. To do this my phone needs to be connected to my laptop via USB. That works if you just want a screenshot from some app, but not if I want to capture an interesting bit of interaction as and when it happens, or something that can't be done on my desk. Like these screenshots from Wikitude AR, which have been taken by Maarten carrying his laptop around to make them.

The second way to make screenshots is using the application Screenshot available in the Android Market. It works in every situation though only with a sort of self-timer instead of a push button function, but more importantly the phone needs to be 'rooted' for the app to work. This means changing the firmware on the phone to an earlier version, exploiting a little hole in that earlier version to gain root access, and then installing a hacked/modified version of the most current firmware. Sounds very laborious, not quite risk free, and like too much of a hassle. It's not something I am willing to try with a 'mission critical' piece of hardware such as my phone.

Which bring me back to the title of this posting: Can You Build Me a G1 Screenshot App?
One that doesn't require me to exploit loopholes in older firmware, or attaching my phone to my laptop all the time?
Is there an Android DevCamp coming up you intend to visit, where building a screenshot app could be a good project to work on? Can you give me an estimate how much time building this app would cost, and if there is a financial incentive that would make you spend that time?

I have a creeping suspicion there may be a technological reason why a decent screenshot app is still not available, but in that case I am very curious to hear what that reason is.

Technorati Tags: android, g1, googlephone, screenshot, screenshotapp, devcamp, barcamp, androidcamp

From the site:
In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?

New technologies and a closely related culture of collaboration present radical new models of social organisation. This project brings together leading practitioners and thinkers in this field and asks them to determine the opportunity for government.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Go watch, then share with those around you likely to influence (local) government.

On Next09 he presented findings from a 15 month study concluded only earlier this month, on social media behaviour of teenagers and adolescents. Given the nature of other presentations at Next09 Jan's session seemed perhaps somewhat misplaced in the general flow of the conference, but I was glad it was part of the programme anyway. Especially as the results presented are very useful to me, and also seem to fit well with research I did myself into media behaviour of children in an age group just before the age groups Schmidt et al looked at.

The research project combined both quantitative and qualitative (focus groups, interviews) elements, allowing for a rich tapestry of results. (Project site in German, 20 page summary pdf in German)

An interesting starting point of Jan Schmidt's presentations was the reason he thought the social web is a good fit with teenagers. The three practices that social media actively embrace match up with three important developmental aspects teenagers grapple with. Identity management (status updates, profiles, publishing vids) relates to the task of the development of self (who am I?), relationship management (friending online, commenting, following) chimes with the development of socialization (who/where am I in groups?), and information management (searching, tagging, rating) matches up with the developmental task of general orientation (who am I in the world?)

Among German youngsters Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and ICQ are the most widely used. (ICQ is the IM of choice in Germany, MSN is what the kids in the Netherlands use. I once heard a Dutch girl on the train explain to a friend that her German boyfriend used ICQ, calling it 'the German MSN'.) Facebook is largely unheard of (ranking under 2% together with Second Life) under German young people, as they use StudiVZ, for students, and SchulerVZ, for high school kids, which combined cover 85%.

About 3/4 of those asked use social networking sites (matching nicely with 70% here in the Netherlands). Young people aren't confused by the term 'friend', as most press coverage seems to always find problematic. Mostly they connect to people they have met face to face at some point, and mostly they do not think those contacts constitute close friendships. In short they know it's a map and not the landscape. Schmidt concludes, one that I share and find important, that social networking sites make weak ties explicit. I would add that as these teenagers get older, it also preserves context, allowing you to keep in touch where normally you would drift apart as you move into different contexts. Jan Schmidt also holds that this makes a perfect training ground for teenage networking and social skills. During that discovery of networking skills slightly over a quarter of those asked say they encountered problematic usage (like bullying etc.), and 5% (girls) to 10% (boys) say they've done things on-line others protested against.

Schmidt also reported on the channels teenagers say they find appropiate for things like arranging meetings, flirting, chatting, meeting new people and breaking up. Ian Forrester of the BBC indicated during the Q&A that they got very different results when asking about actual behaviour. But to me this was interesting because it gives us a picture of the normative behaviour of these teenagers. And the conclusion is that, except (unsurprisingly) arranging meetings, face to face contact is still very much the norm, followed by synchronous communication such as phone and IM at increasing distance (and that snail mail has no future at all).

I find this significant, as it shows us digital media have become part of our daily diet, but at the same time there is no significant shift in values and norms it seems between them and our generations when it comes to human interaction. Behaviour is changing, but normative behaviour is not, and direct human face to face contact is still on top. It flies in the face of fear mongering adults thinking kids these days isolate themselves behind their screens and can't see the difference between real and fake contact. That fear is something those adults project on their kids, and more a reflection of not wanting to deal with the new skills involved themselves, a case of monster killing. In reality new media channels mean primarily there are more options to communicate when face to face is not possible or not practical.

That social media have become a normal part of every day teenage life is further proven by the observation that terms like social media and Web2.0 are largely unknown to these age groups. Again these are terms we have made up to describe the difference compared to what we knew before. These kids know just this, the internet that is now. They don't have to unlearn stuff like we do, they use what is there. Let's stop projecting our notions on these kids, and like Schmidt et al, start observing more what they are really doing, saying and thinking. So that we can connect that to the values and notions we like to instill them with, so that we can give them an education and raising that is meaningful to them.

Video and slides:

Link:

Disclosure: I was at the Next '09 Conference in Hamburg on the invitation of the organizers as a blogger and did not have to pay for my conference ticket.

Technorati Tags: next09, hamburg, kampnagel, janschmidt, socialmedia, teenagers, research

Lee didn't waste much time before digging below the surface of some examples of companies showing signs of being user driven. The same companies were mentioned as those held up by Jeff Jarvis and Umair Haque the day before as signs of change (Dell, Walkers Crisps) and consequently attacked by Andrew Keen as examples of the usual rampant free market power grab but now hiding under the cloak of innovation (quote). Lee Bryant did a much better job of feeding the debate (Andrew Keen's stated interest) than Keen in full frontal attack mode, as he asked the question what it will take to embed 'user driven' and openness as a notion into general business culture. Taking it further, based on what still can be improved.

The short answer is that you cannot be 'user driven' and open on the outside and at the same time treat your own people like mere parts in the machinery. Your values need to be people focussed both inside and out, or you won't succeed.

Companies need to ask themselves whether their goal is pure profit maximisation in the short-term, leading to pillage and plunder attitudes, or sustainable income by real value creation over the long term. If the latter, companies need to find balance between respect, social status and profit. If you opt for profit in the short-term it will cost you your respect and social status, which in turn will come back to hurt the company itself. Large companies as Unilever started out with social and profit goals. Banking was a respected profession serving communities until they descended to plunder (I think it started with the introduction of financial derivatives in the mid 1980's, when financial investment products became completely disconnected from underlying companies and their value/values). Bankers may be rich now, but not respected or with highly regarded social status. Other models than pillage and plunder exist (as Umair Haque also discussed in his presentation on doing away with the war-metaphor for doing business), based on both cooperation and competition (like the Hanseatic trade league) or on profiting from making your customers profit (like Threadless)

All too often reality: We do not value you or your call

So user-driven companies need to start from within, letting their employees be human and be seen to be humans on the outside. Relationships are build between human beings. Between your employees and your customers. Dell maybe better at listening to their customers than before Jeff Jarvis unleashed Dell Hell, but as long as you are mostly talking to your customers through anonymous outsourced call centers it does not really change anything fundamental. Letting your people be human is a start, but needs to be augmented with having faith in your network as well as valuing your ecosystem. You need to recognize that your company is not a completely seperate entity, but merely a temporary clustering of people, relationships, values and production means (me in 2004), within the wider network around it. Managers and employees are not outside of that general network, they're users, customers, clients, and human beings themselves as well. Acting within the context of an organisation however we often seem to forget that. Culture is the sum of individual behaviour within a group. To change business culture organisations need to allow their people to behave, and to be seen to behave, according to the company's shared values and purpose.

The video of Lee's presentation at Next09:

Link:

Lee blogged his own presentation as well: User Driven Companies Should Start from Within

Disclosure: I was at the Next '09 Conference in Hamburg on the invitation of the organizers as a blogger and did not have to pay for my conference ticket.

Technorati Tags: next09, hamburg, kamnagel, leebryant, headshift, userdriven, innovation, values

The well-known blogger Jeff Jarvis was the first key-note speaker on this full afternoon of key-notes at Next09 (weren't key-notes meant to be the inspiring kick-offs for conversations at a conference? Here the first day of the programme is filled with key-notes only, and positioned as a pre-conference day)

He gave his What Would Google Do talk, that he did at the Next Web as well (slides below). A good presentation, with lots of fun quotes (see the Twitter next09 stream) but most of it right out of the book.

UPDATE: Video is now on-line. Jeff Jarvis starts at about 7:20 into the video.

Link:

Disclosure: I am at the Next '09 Conference in Hamburg on the invitation of the organizers as a blogger and did not have to pay for my conference ticket.

Technorati Tags: next09, jeffjarvis, hamburg

The theme this year is the Sharing Economy, which is timely I think.

Apart from blogging here I will of course be posting pictures, and use my public Twitter account for event related messages.

I am looking forward to a number of inspiring sessions.