I attended NetSquared last year for its inaugural conference, and I wrote an introduction entitled Can Blogging Stop Genocide? If you're interested in all the details about who I am, how I got here and how it's connected to the project I'm proposing at this year's conference, check out that entry.

What I really want to focus on in this post is how to find ways to collaborate with other participants at the conference, rather than be swallowed up by the competition. But first, and quickly by way of an introduction, I'll say that the Genocide Intervention Network's mission is to:

empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.

Perhaps you can see that this fits pretty naturally with the spirit of "web 2.0" and social networking -- user-driven projects, user-generated content, network-centric advocacy, etc. As a result we've engaged in a number of such projects in the past, and happily share our experiences with other organizations.

Our proposal to the NetSquared community is An Anti-Genocide Community: Building the Political Will to End Genocide -- in brief:

Empowering anti-genocide activists with the tools for community-based education, user-generated content and strong shared connections, the anti-genocide community will pool the collective knowledge of a growing movement for change.

In essence, we see a lot of activists spending a lot of time trying to create materials out of sparse resources -- images ripped off of news sites, information culled from many websites, etc. We want to create a portal where these activists can create their own materials using a library of text, images and videos. In the long run, we hope to strengthen the bonds of the anti-genocide community by giving people easy ways to connect to each other, and integrate those connections with high-profile social networks (MySpace, Facebook, etc.).

I'm happy to chat with attendees about any number of things -- anti-genocide activism, social networking, Drupal development, unarmed peacekeeping, radical social history, graphic design...I have my fingers in many pies.

Collaboration Not Competition: Notes from the Pre-Conference Workshop

I'll be taking pictures throughout the conference; here's the first batch from my NetSquared Flickr album, from the pre-conference workshop for project participants:

As you might be able to see from that first picture (click to enlarge) one of the main themes we as project participants discussed was how to tone down the competition aspect of the conference and get as much as we could out of the collaboration aspect. I don't want to presume to speak for other participants, so I'll just say that I really appreciate the immense amount of hard work and time that NetSquared organizers have put into getting so many incredible, talented, thoughtful people in the room together. While some of us may be primarily motivated by the monetary award (although it's not the Genocide Intervention Network's motivation), there seemed consensus that it would really be a shame to leave without spending time building those strong collaborative connections.

Much of this, of course, was outlined previously in Gunner's thoughtful blog on the scarcity vs. abundance model. After having participated in Gunner's excellently-facilitated pre-conference workshop with most of the other participants, I can say that there is clearly an abundance of resources here!

I also feel that I need to own some of my whining here: I had some pretty strong feelings about the initial approach of determining which projects would get a seat at this year's conference. I expressed these concerns to some NetSquared folks, and a few weeks later, the approach was modified in some pretty significant and potentially up-ending ways (e.g. community voting). So I want to emphasize that I think while that process has flaws, it was a huge social experiment that had great value for our network and us as participants, and I felt it made great strides beyond last year's design and represented a concrete commitment to "trusting the network" -- something plenty of supposedly "web 2.0" organizations are still loathe to do. I really do want to recognize how much I appreciate the changes that were made. Now (as any good progressive), I'm hoping to tease out ways to make it even better.

Some Concrete Proposals for Collaboration

Here are some proposals that were suggested in the pre-conference workshop:

• Have affinity-group or caucus tables at the two lunches. These could be organized around technologies (people using maps, people using Drupal, etc.), goals (people focusing on social networking, people focusing on tools for nonprofits, etc.) or even geography. There was a lot of support for this idea.
• Act as "matchmakers" when speaking to funders or tech support staff. Inevitably, there will be some folks who are really only interested in supporting environmental groups, or groups working on human rights, or groups using open-source software, or groups based in the Global South, etc. Project participants, having been through the community voting process (and hopefully perused their books) know the projects better than many of the other attendees -- and we shouldn't be afraid to point people in the direction of another project when possible.
• Have lots of skillshares, geekouts and other opportunities for collaborative learning. One of the really positive things from last year was the "carnival" on the second day in which folks who had a particular expertise could give short workshops on that technology, approach, etc. There was clearly interest around getting this sort of support again this year, as shown by the repeated suggestions of Drupal discussion, mapping discussion, streaming video discussion, social network support discussion, mobile technology discussion and others at the pre-conference workshop. I would be happy to help facilitate a group around any number of things; e.g. Drupal or social network advocacy (Myspace, etc.). I hope others will follow this lead and volunteer to throw together their own affinity groups, during or in addition to the lunch tables, depending on what people are interested in.
• De-emphasizing the competitiveness of the "carnival" on the second day. Some project participants, myself included, were frankly skeptical that we would need yet one more time to "sell" our projects to the funders. There were, in fact, suggestions that the voting might have been better done right away, so that the more important job of collaboration could be gotten on with. Of course, we recognize the time and energy funders are putting in to this project and we wouldn't want to short-shrift them. That said, given the schedule, the carnival is one of the last times we'll all be able to talk to each other -- and not all of us feel the need to spend that time segmented into projects vying for the big money pot. Thus, my own personal commitment (and an invitation to others): I will not be presenting my project at the carnival. Instead, I will be happy to facilitate a discussion, skillshare, geekout/demo or something of that nature in an area of interest to folks at the conference. Essentially, I'll treat this year's carnival like last year's -- an opportunity to learn from each other, and share my own experiences and knowledge when useful. I hope others will join me.

Collaboration on paper, collaboration online

As a way to jumpstart some of the ideas above, I am going to do my best to find some large sheets of paper to attach to the walls on which people can write some things...after the conference I hope I can move these things to a wiki somewhere, but in my experience conferences often work in many ways because of the physicality -- I think these things will be better explored on big poster-sized paper. Some ideas for these posters:

• Good Resources for Getting Started in Social Networking/Web 2.0 (books, blogs, etc.)
• Good Resources for Nonprofit Organization, Management and Structure
• Good Resources to Use in Applying for Grants, Especially Related to Technology
• Things I Can Talk With Authority About for At Least 60 Seconds (i.e. skillshare offerers)
• Things I Would LIke to Learn About for At Least 60 Seconds (i.e. skillshare requestors)
• Activity Board (who wants to check out the Tech Museum of Innovation while we're here?)
• Ride Board (carpooling is cool!)
• General Comment/Suggestion Board

I'm sure others will have ideas on other posters to add to this series (also, if anyone has any big poster-sized paper...I could use some).

My hope, with these posters and (if they are adopted) some of the ideas from the pre-conference listed above, would be to increase the ability of participants to collaborate at this conference, while respecting the time and commitment of the organizers, funders and other attendees who have an established schedule for the two days.

Any comments, additions or disputes are welcome.

Oh, and hello! Nice to meet you!