This is Beth Kanter live blogging from Feedback Session 4 - Tech Innovation Track at the NetSquared Conference. All live blogging disclaimers apply.

Expert Reviewers

Seth Bindernagel
Fabrice Florin
Ed Biese (?)

FamilyFarmed.org

Key Technology Challenge:

How to transform the site from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0?

Questions

• How much burden are you placing on the end-users (farmers)?
• As you scale, how will you face to the challenge of distribution? Seems like there are 10K organic farms in the US. Can you describe what you have in place for logistics management as you scale? What logistically do you have place for the supply chain.
• What would be the most important piece of Web 2.0 info that needed to be exchanged between consumers and farmers.
• What is a family farm versus other type of farm?
• Do you envision that web2.0 tools will help with conversation about standards?
• What type of ROI are looking for with your technology investment?

Response

Range of tech savvy users from Amish farmers to more sophisticated tech savvy farmers. The Amish farmers fax the changes and call us by pay phone. We have to be flexible to address the range of technology skills of the farmers.

Several years ago in IL, we had a distribution system to get food into Chicago. To address, we did a feasibility study and identified that we down the road we'll need more powerful supply chain management tools. The tools don't exist yet. We are passing a legislation to support a local supply chain and we will seek funding and a lot of the funding will support a supply chain system. We need to do an assessment of who is doing what and figure out how to integrate web-based technology. Hope to learn from businesses like Target.

For the farmers, many of them want to take their stories to another level. Photos or video tours. Bring people out to the farm. More stories out there, but better. So consumers feel like they are connected and purchase more products.

Consumers want more transparency. If it isn't organic, is it local cancer or pesticides. Different levels of standards and certifications for what "local foods" need. If not organic, it is x. This way consumers know where it was grown and what it means.

Family farm means that the family is involved. They may not be doing all the work. How do you treat your employees. How do you interact with the community? The standards are in draft and will be finalized. Can't specifically speak to all the elements.

With the association of family farms, we hope to integrate web2.0 tools. It has been a challenging messy process. The initial stakeholders need to develop the standard and get feedback and then refine it.

The ROI will provide improvements on all levels. Building the web will be important. We'll be using news from trust worthy sources and people who use the site feel it is valuable and will generate more business for the farmers. We want to create a vibrant web community. We are looking at chain supply management system - and create more business for the farmers and looking to improve the situation for all stakeholders if we can nail the technology.

Does anyone examples where a state has engaged stakeholders in a discussion re: standards and certifications.

The Freecycle Network

Key Technology Challenge

Our website is a series of links to thousands of Yahoo groups. Our biggest challenge -- we don't have the ability to send our members an email, we don't know who our members are, we can't send an email to everyone at once. We have a wildly successful concept but there a tech wall between our members and continued success. How do we take what we have and provide them with social networking tools to take it to the next level? We have the recycling passion and how to take that and provide a web site with networking capacity. How do we interlink them?

Questions

• While there are all these awesome technology tools, we need to start at basic level on the ground.
• Observation: You've created something to work and catalyze that success into creating a web2.0 community. Is there something about the transactional nature of what your doing that ... before launch into social network and think about your one-off transactions versus persistent community.
• Have you thought of doing a partnership with a social networking site because you bring so many users to the table?
• A goal of enabling the community and get community feedback. How do you go about that process of technology selection and make it sustainable? Do you build it or buy it?

Response

We don't have a budget. We have a key asset of volunteers. We've had volunteers try to decide the web site. It failed because we couldn't scale it to our size. Finding the funds to do the technical design is the hurdle.

There are some relationships where people meet one another via the transaction. It is building some communities - for example - exchange home brewing supplies and exchange recipes. There are groups that organize "free meets" where people have block parties and give away items. Meet-ups to give away things. Each group is local and the way you receive the materials is to meet the person. Would like to integrate maps. It goes beyond the one email for a transaction. The community is already thinking of these ideas. The local connections offer some persistent community.

They would be interested in partnering with social networking sites. But the problem is that their information is being held by Yahoo. An interim solution - renegotiate the relationship with Yahoo?

The core of Freecycle network is unique and made it difficult to find a system that was already built. The core of what we do is unique and needs to be customized. Problem with e-commerce sites is that dollar amounts are an option and no longer freecycle.

Kabissa 2.0

Key Challenge:

Site will be platform for the 20 ambassadors for conversation and they will be working with organizations to come up with web2.0 in new ways. Being built in drupal

Questions

• How using drupal in new ways?
• What is the competitive landscape?
• Throughout the materials, you talk about the face-to-face meetings leveraged from Web2.0? How do you plan to sustain that?
• You mentioned having groups contribute to software development? Can you clarify?
• How many users do you see 2 years from now? Ideal use case?
• How will you make localize versions available? How will you seed control to those want to localize?
• What makes Web2.0 a good solution to your project? If a culture that is not Internet-addicted, will it lend itself to African culture? Will you be facilitator of content?

Response

Training materials in a wiki. Using drupal to add interactive features.

There is a country by country competition, but not all African organizations. There are some organizations doing it in some countries or sectors, but not the all continent.

The face-to-face interaction will happen with ambassadors and their communities. They also want to gather the ambassadors face-to-face. To sustain, it will be 1/3 from government, local, and foundation sources.

For software development, they interact with open source software communities. So the ambassadors may bring that to the attention. Part of our goal is to make the Internet more African. The tools have to reflect Africa. For example, Imap is a great tool for Africans to use for email, but there may a way to make it more user-friendly for Africans. There are opportunity to contribute home-grown approaches to Internet tools.

They have 1,000 org. members with 2-4 people per organizations. We anticipate doubling the number in two years. Ideal scenario for use case. One ambassador works on a project, posts a case study, and it is used by others.

Web2.0 isn't the solution, it is just one piece. It comes along with important innovations for using Internet to share content. When an African grassroots organizer who doesn't have their own computer can log into any Internet cafe and have the same Interface. Web2.0 a wider and more efficient potentially more user friendly way for them to do it.

Big Brothers Big Sisters AIM System

Technology Challenge:
Trying to get 400 agencies to go to scale with the system. Some needs are more mundane.

1. Need a single sign on system -- what is the standards.
2. We need a better data mining systems. To be able to do more sophisticated analysis on data.
3. A method to link their system with Microsoft Outlook

Questions

• Observation: For the calendaring and email issues, you may need to look at micro formats.
• Your needs are complex and would urge to consider making solutions web-based as possible.
• What is your hesitation in having web-based applications?
• A project with infinite boundaries. What are the top ten items? How will those items make it easier for the programs to do their work effectively?
• How you thought of making a system that could be usable to other agencies that serve children?

Response

They are looking at these observations because everything in trending towards web-based applications. The challenge to low bandwidth environments -- when Africans are taking a new tool and played with teens in America. The opportunity is frustrating to them because they can only get to it 15 minutes for 2-3 weeks.

What are the top ten or five features that will help the agencies do their work? What are the essential features? They wrestle with 70/30 rule. Most of the children served are served from larger sophisticated organizations. But the rest of the agencies have simple needs.

The system could be generic to do use. They have been talking to other organizations developing systems - it depends on whether their system would bring value.

HELP

Technology Challenge

Big issues in communicating needs in a disaster is the time needed to get the coverage to the media while it is still being covered and there is interest. Providing live links. The other challenge is the knowledge sharing of medical expertise.

Questions

• How far along are you in technology partnerships?
• Imagining a high functioning medical interface - with distributed language translation, and it seems to be a large and important project. Have you approached large research hospitals or pharm companies
• If you had to pick one mission critical need, what would be?
• Building communities around emergency care versus chronic need? Is that a seperation?

Response

We have been doing mobile medical clinics for ten years. We are members of the American telemedicine association, but our efforts are broader. We're working in India. We're leading the deployment of a African disaster management database. We have capacity and networks in India, Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and other places.

They are looking to work with partners. They have many offers of assistance from research hospitals. There are organizations and institutions they are talking to to expand their network.

The most important need is to share the medical expertise worldwide to help the patients. There is also the aspect of telling the world what is going on and getting the stories out there.

There is a separation between emergency and chronic need. An example is Darfur. Need to build our communications capacity to address that need. We need to be there when a disaster first hits and get the impact and build the community. We need to capitalize when the media is there. But we don't want to leave when the media leaves.