Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)
-
Upload
douglas-schuler -
Category
Education
-
view
1.835 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)
![Page 1: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Community Informatics for Community Informaticians
Douglas SchulerCommunity Informatics Research Network Conference
Prato, ItalyOctober 27, 2010
Making History in Historic Times
![Page 2: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Disclaimers
• I'm a "newcomer" to this conference, but not to the field
• (As you probably know) I'm not the first person to bring up these suggestions…
• These proposals are offered from my perspective but please consider them as Wiki-style templates.
• If I had had more time, this would be shorter. Probably better organized too... i.e. this is a work in progress.
![Page 3: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Why do I say “Historic?”
Life on the planet is going through fundamental shifts.
The opportunities we have now are time-limited.
The actions we take now may actually establish set the directions we take in the future.
Our community focuses on a critical — though often overlooked — area.
It’s actually an understatement
![Page 4: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Our Goals• Research / understand our environment and our
actions
• Empower communities
• Promote equitable and effective policy
• Develop civic and community applications
• Claim / identify / create the role of community and civil society in cyberspace and in information systems generally
• Change the world
![Page 5: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
The State of our Enterprise
• Our glass is not empty, but not full either.
• A network, but not necessarily an intentional one.
We can do better...
![Page 6: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
The Challenge
What can we do the improve the effectiveness — or what I’d call the Civic Intelligence — of our community?
Can we apply what we know to actually help ourselves?
![Page 7: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
How Can We Achieve This?
•Building a shared technological platform
•Building a stronger and more intentional network
Through two mutually reinforcing activities:
We should spend more time and effort applying community informatics to our own community
![Page 8: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Networks
• Lots (and lots) of connections
• Free flow of information
• No control
• Lack of focus
• Not conducive to decision-making
Much exalted but not without problems
![Page 9: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Hierarchies
• A special kind of network
• Regimentation / Chain of Command
• Constrained communication
• Bureaucracy and “fiefdoms”
• Decisions are basically “final”
• Organizations as “machines”
• Focus and coordinated action easier
Much disparaged but not without advantages
![Page 10: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
The software and the community that uses it can be more intentional. We can create a hybrid network / hierarchy.
How do we “Structurize” our Network?
• Interest groups
• Dynamic leadership
• Issues as nodes
• Shared projects
![Page 11: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Why this should be easy for us — • We have similar interests and motivation
• We’re oriented towards actual projects especially community work
Why this could be hard for us — • We’re individualistic
• Not enough resources?
• Maybe we’d fight over resources? Who would be able to fundraise in “our” name?
• We’re geographically distributed; we come from different “worlds”
• Inertia. It’s easier to keep doing what we’re doing.
![Page 12: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Possible Uses of a Shared Technological Resource
• Find the information you need
• Share policy documents, applications and other resources
• Identify other people with similar interests
• Develop and test theories
• Find other people with whom to collaborate
• Create software, APIs, and other useful artifacts
• Carry out larger research and other projects less expensively by sharing the load more broadly and intelligently
• Create and manage projects or campaigns
• Make our work more accessible to the rest of the world (as well as more legitimate, necessary, possible, and effective)
• Build our community
![Page 13: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
• Fulfill general individual needs
• Fulfill general organizational needs
• Easy join / some commitment (many small contributions can create an enormous resource)
• "Big tent" philosophy
• Reciprocal sharing and log-ins
• Look and feel sharing
Some Requirements for a Shared Technological Resource
![Page 14: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
General Requirements (continued)
• Structure of organization / technical approach should help us to do what we want to do
• Support for the data objects for community informatics repository (ICT policy info, papers, events, projects, people, news, etc. etc.); context information; other "objects" (e.g. patterns)
• Theory development / research directions
• Internationalization
![Page 15: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
A Civic Intelligence Orientation
• What knowledge do we need?
• How can we support our processes?
• Think about focus
• Think about learning, monitoring, memory, negotiating, etc.
• Collaborative modes like collaboration, deliberation, etc.
• Tech development: Smart or public or civic intelligence search engine(s)
Generally this means promoting civic ends through civic means
![Page 16: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
A Civic Intelligence Orientation
• Civic intelligence is established as an explicit frame
• Design using civic intelligence and models
• System promotes civic intelligence in users
• The system is built to demonstrate and manifest civic intelligence as an evolving intelligent artifact
Four Main Approaches for Design*
* From my planned (but temporarily abandoned) Prato submission....
![Page 17: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
No Intelligence Without Focus
• Can technology (or organizational structure) help sustain individual and collective focus / attention ...
• ... on content, on projects, on situation, on people, on tools, or on issues.
• How do we indicate our attentional interests and how do we learn about what we need to learn about and hear about changes?
Help is (Possibly) on the Horizon
![Page 18: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
General Approach
• Build on existing data and processes
• Build incrementally towards planned and emerging goals
• Collaborative development
• Roll your own and use existing platforms
• Build the community intentionally (and, probably, formally)
![Page 19: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Organizational Recommendations
• Global organization including people from all over the world -- diversity can be strength!
• Network of networks // Project oriented / Non-partisan
• Basic principles
• A formal (i.e. legally established) organization
• some designated leaders — at least at first
• Try to model new organizational forms that are more suitable to future work
• Support for activities (e.g. collaboration and deliberation)
• Build on new findings (from social media, network theory, collective IQ findings!) and build bridges to other disciplines
![Page 20: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Support for Intelligent Interactions
• deliberation
• collaboration
• project / campaign development
• question and answer
• Multi-user document editing
• Etc. Etc.
![Page 21: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Some short-term goals Some progress towards organization and technological development for our community.
Identifying other people and groups who ought to get involved.Identify the objects to supportIdentify a core group of peopleDirectories and repositories for applicationsMaybe an RFC for this campaign?Develop a set of principlesWiki-based requirements documentsprofile definitionscross-site linkingCI search enginesCI ontologiesetc.etc.
Some slightly random suggestions
![Page 22: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
What am I offering?• Organizational support (CPSR, PSP)
• Encouragement
• Some (hopefully) interesting ideas
• PSP technology including pattern development and annotation
• My efforts
• And, last but not least, a Pattern workshop on Friday (October 29)! The workshop can help move the initiative I’m proposing — or any other community project further along.
![Page 23: Community Informatics for Community Informaticians (keynote at CIRN 2010, Prato, Italy)](https://reader034.fdocuments.in/reader034/viewer/2022051816/546332ddaf7959a4058b4d8c/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Final Reiteration
•Building a shared technological platform
•Building a stronger and more intentional network
We achieve this through two mutually reinforcing activities:
We should spend some time and effort applying community informatics to our own community