Main Page

Previous:	Pracademics: A great concept that goes by an ungraceful name
Next:	Spirituality and nonprofit technology, Or "how did you get so far off track?"

"I thought I knew, but I had no idea" (Is this good news or bad news?)

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Tue 16 Jan 2007 03:15 PM EST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

Photos by Steve Garfield and Ruby Sinreich

Monday's working meeting on local politics and information in the internet era was a revelatory experience, and one that will take me quite a while to process. My hat is off to folks such as Ethan Zuckerman, David Weinberger, and Dan Gillmor, who did a great job of blogging the sessions in real time.

What really struck me was the number of times I heard fellow participants express amazement at the depth and breadth of projects out there. We had people at the table who are extremely well-informed, well-connected, and deeply engaged in all the latest Web 2.0 developments for activists - and yet the refrain of the day seemed to be "I thought I knew, but I had no idea how much is going on out there."

I can't figure out whether it's good news or bad news that there's far more happening in the world of electronic advocacy and political organizing than any one mind can comprehend.

Naturally, the question I raised with members of this working group was about what they had to teach the nonprofit sector, and what the nonprofit sector had to teach them about this topic.

Fortunately, we agreed to use the tag "berkmansunlight" for text and images that come out of the working group's discussion, so it should be possible for nonprofit professionals who use social bookmarking tools such as del.icio.us to get up to speed on the discussion. But how are we going to motivate these web-savvy, high-flying mavens to get up to speed on what the nonprofit sector is (or could be) doing?

Why are the tools for open democracy coming from the left?

Citizens response

Cool democracy tools

Berkman Sunlight: Political Information in an Internet Era

Local political information

Introducing MAPLight to the Berkman/Sunlight conference

Ten democracy projects in seventy minutes

Local online organizing at the Sunlight Foundation meeting

Amazing Tools and Content at Harvard

Sunlight Foundation event on MLK, Jr., Day at HLS

Political Watchdogging

This is the post conference write-up I did for the Sunlight Foundation

Everyone left with more questions

Samantha & Bianca drop some science on us

berkmansunlight

Keywords: berkmansunlight, Tagging, StrategicIT, Politics, Organizing, OnlineCollaboration, NPtech, Nonprofit, NewMedia, Meetings, MashUps, KnowledgeManagement, Grassroots, ElectronicAdvocacy, CyberYenta, CoolTools, CommunityTechnology, CommunitiesOfPractice, CivilSociety, CivicEngagement, Bookmarking, BestPractices, BerkmanCenter, Advocacy

Posted to:

Main Page

Comments

Post a comment

the last mile

by Marshall Kirkpatrick on Tue 16 Jan 2007 04:39 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Good post Deborah, and nice to see you on Techmeme too! Wish I had a good answer to your question! ( I really wish I did. ) Warmest regards, Marshall

Re:
"I thought I knew, but I had no idea" (Is this good news or bad news?)

by David on Wed 24 Jan 2007 11:59 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Sounds like an interesting conversation. As you know, Deborah, we here at SCI have been very interested in how technology can support our social capital building tools. We launched a new community site for Dorchester recently, using some of the latest social networking tools to help bring people together in a local community. Based on this site (which was developed using Drupal), in partnership with Gov. Patrick we've recently launched a new site to promote civic engagement among Mass. youth. In the process, we've certainly run across many other interesting efforts to use tech to bring people together locally.

Re: Re:
"I thought I knew, but I had no idea" (Is this good news or bad news?)

by Steve Wilmarth on Sun 28 Jan 2007 09:24 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

David, I'm the Director of the Center for 21st Century Skills in Litchfield, CT and brought Samantha and Bianca to the working group meeting hosted by the Berkman Center / Sunlight Foundation. We're all very pleased with the response these young ladies get as they relate their experiences, ideas, and youth activism to such gatherings.

They have now spoken at 2 major media conference events, and are garnering invitations to speak at many others. These speaking engagement invitations are based on a combination of Bianca and Samantha's unique cultural perspectives (within the context of the audiences they encounter), a rare maturity and seriousness exhibited for high school juniors, and their relentless self-determined learning styles.

These young women, while creating opportunities for themselves based on their own life choices and objectives, give credit to much of what's happening to them to their participation as sophomores in the '05-'06 Innovation Challenge program . Through the Challenge program, they developed the necessary confidence, insight, and connections to be able to "open doors" to a much wider world.

For more information about the Challenge and the other projects we run for 1500+ CT high school students, half of which come from racially and economically isolated communities, see out web site: http://skills21.org and our IT Leadership Academy site at http://itacademy.org.

I'd welcome an opportunity to talk with SCI about ways we could partner to bring our curriculum and community building practices to schools in MA.

A couple of notes: We've applied for an NSF grant and believe we have an excellent chance of receiving an award notice in late Feb. We're also co-sponsoring a 1 week teacher institute at Tufts University in new media techniques for classroom teaching and learning. We have a number of prospective corporate sponsors, including IBM, AT&T, Apple Computer, and Walden Media.

If any of what we're doing the area of social capital and community building has synergy with SCI, I'd appreciate an introduction and opportunity for discussion.

Steve Wilmarth
Director
The Center for 21st Century Skills
Litchfield, Connecticut
860-227-1225
eMail: stephen.wilmarth@gmail.com

Post comment:

Format Type:
	Convert newlines
	Receive comment notifications for this article
Subject:

Comment:

Comment verification:

Please enter the text you see inside the graphic to post your comment:

You are not currently logged in. If you would like your user information to be displayed with your comment, please enter your login information below.