October Net Tuesday SF (10/14) will explore Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Superstruct, a project of the nonprofit Institute For The Future with Jane McGonigal. Join Us!
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NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
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net2con: I tag the hand. . .
These are just my quick notes - I'll come back to add reflections later...
Beth's story on the use of tags to improve the efficiency of using nptech tags (and others) - I could see that many non-profits (and schools) are using outdated and inefficienty tools to accomplish their goals.
Chris Heuer believes that tagging is the most important aspect of web2.0. All events should have their own unique tag. He discussed folksonomies, his launch of brainjams as a response to web2.1 and tagspaces as a response to an identified need to search tags by subsets of users. He introduced Paramedia - networks of people with access to media publishing tools and training.
Erik Collier discussed aggregators and their use in the np world. He specifically focused on Bloglines and their use of tags
Marshall Kirkpatrick's time was limited but he pointed us towards the future expansion into mobile phones among other things.
Q&A explored uses of these tools. Staff time is both the challenge to implementing this solution and the goal - IF staff could implement these tools, it would be a time-saver for the org, allowing for more interaction with those served by the org.
itags.net was mentioned...
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Unintended consequences?
We ran out of time before I could get this thought into the tagging conversation:
Without disputing the power of tagging (indeed, BECAUSE of the power of tagging) I had a nagging concern throughout this session. I worry when I see a powerful tool taking root in the nonprofit sector, but no clear path or energy around bringing that power to the individuals that many of our organizations exist to serve. We can have an animated conversation about how tagging can make information more useful to nonprofits, how nonprofits can use tagging to have a new kind of relationship with donors, etc. But for those of us who's goal is to empower those in society who have been systemically oppressed and disadvantage... we need to think about what tagging could mean to them.
Another way of framing this is as a digital divide issue. What are the implications of nonprofits crossing the divide to a tag-rich cyber-universe, but not bringing low-income, traditionally disadvantaged populations along with us? And yet I don't see how to do this easily. I mean, Del.icio.us is pretty amazing, yet it's not something for your average 'just getting across the digital divide' schmoe. IF we seize these tools but leave the people on the wrong side of the divide behind, aren't we working against our own purposes?
Maybe we're just at a very early stage, and tagging tools will become vastly more intuitive and applicable to novices. But if that conversation isn't happening here, then where is it happening?