liveblogging for the social impact track of feedback session 4. I'm switching from the outline format I was using before to a Q&A format, I hope it's more readable:

• evaluators
  
  • Ginger Thompson - YouthNoise
  • David Sezaki - Global Voices
  • Tate Howsman - dotOrganize
• projects
  
  • Stop Family Violence
  • Miro
  • MyKenyanSpace
  • WiserEarth
  • Innovatorz

 

Stop Family Violence

 

questions & feedback from evaluators

 

Q: is your mission to give local organizations access to types of tools used for online activism, content production, etc. that they don't have access to?

 

A: not quite. Rather, giving them web support (many don't have websites). As for the activism, it doesn't come from us/the organization, but from the community of survivors; the tools should be given to them.

 

Q: web 1.0 tools work best on a local level; it's a powerful component of this toolkit. As for web2.0 tools, what needs to be examined is not whether these tools exist, but whether they even need this service.

 

A: yes, we are doing market analysis - what kind of tools do they want, what can they pay. We're doing it for 3 groups - the ones that don't have websites, the ones that want to improve theirs, and the ones that already have great sites. What does each group need?

 

Q: how could you have the most social impact with regards to family violence? We've seen a lot of network ideas (a specialized version of MySpace, etc). Might you consider making a widget that plugs into existing social networks, instead of building a whole new network?

 

A: People who have been through abuse want to have a safe space that is only about what they've been through, and it can be a contained compartment of their life, so they can have another identity without this pervading it. Young people are the most often affected by this issue but the impact lasts a lifetime. They won't necessarily want to go to MySpace or Facebook when they get older. It would have specialized information, access to service providers who also wouldn't be likely to go to Facebook, etc.

 

questions from the floor:

 

Q: A sense of being closed, safe space might be associated with being small. How will you be able to create a large national platform while maintaining this safe space?

 

A: there is a niche for a small space. But there's also a place for a distributed network where you can see this is a problem in many places, and be able to see that you're part of something bigger. There's strength in numbers, esp. for people who have been oppressed and marginalized.

 

Q: How do you relate to all the other groups that currently exist online, e.g. Yahoo Groups. Do you want to replace them, pass people out to them, etc?

 

A: I don't envision replacing them. We want to make as many resources and options available as possible; but we especially want to make sure people know where to find them. One thing that concerns me is that sometimes there are uninformed opinions & information passed around. An example is the Survivor's Handbook. Local services can add customized information. There'll also be a comment section so people can hear from others who have been through the same experience.

 

Q: what is the platform that you need to do this most efficiently? How will you design it - who are you trying to reach first?

 

A: I have been continually amazed by the diversity of people who have reached up through our current site & mailing list….[time ran out]

 

 

Miro

 

Intro: We are developing an open source video player to effect media reform. We're looking to make the connection between the creator, publisher, and viewer, and allowing each to have control over the relationships. The broader impact we hope to achieve is to have a very open distribution method which ensures that we're not left with closed gateways. (note: the old name of the project is Democracy Player)

 

questions & feedback

 

Q: If Democracy Player disappeared, I would switch to Views or iTunes. Why is this important now?

 

A: the way that Apple implements RSS is partial support, and they don’t support bitTorrent. If you don't have open standards, other groups will dominate the market share and close it off. Apple promotes all the paid, DRM content on their services. It's a question of focus & being able to have a truly open public channel.

 

Q: so it's about how to eliminate the corporate interest that drives

 

A: it's about driving the market in this direction, not necessarily eliminating the corporate interest. To the extent that other services provide RSS, they are allies. We want to promote the most open delivery standards so they aren't eclipsed by the closed, proprietary standards. It's like the way that Firefox pushes Microsoft to be more open.

 

questions from the floor

 

Q: Are you also thinking about the social impact of technology that can be customizable, since you're open source?

 

A: definitely. The open source encourages innovation on the development side. We also want to build a platform for users to build tools for themselves, as Firefox has done with their plugins.

 

Q: are other players opening up their code to extension?

 

A: another open source player, Songbird, is starting to do that. But iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. aren't going to do that because they don't see it helping their revenue stream.

 

A: the big vendors will make sure that their proprietary systems are part of the ecosystem. For example, Linux didn't take off until IBM came on board. Miro is a project that doesn't have any of the encumbrance of a for-profit organization.

 

Q: What about the subversive aspects? are there things that your player can do which might bring it into conflict with IP issues?

 

A: our player works like a web browser; you can point it to anything you want. Look at YouTube - they are making editorial judgments and pulling things, but this wouldn't be possible in our system at all. We believe you should be able to make the direct connection

 

Q: anticipating some which will dramatize/publicize your work?

 

A: we do think that may happen, when something gets pulled that people really care about

 

Q: strategies for increasing awareness and findability?

 

A: we've been talking about closed captioning & supporting standards emerging around that. One of the advantages of being built on an open source platform is that we are accessible by searches (e.g. Google), as content in the iTunes library is not.

 

MyKenyanSpace

 

intro: giving African users the ability to realize the full value of their property.

 

Q: you're pushing for a fair trade model, which I think is really exciting. Are we really talking about a business to business online marketplace, or a social network? Currently it's clearly social, but what you're really trying to encourage is trade. Is this like an eBay for African to non-African trade?

 

A: MyKenyanSpace.net currently is far from the . We want to start with a social network; it will be a business to business venture with social connections. This is inspired by our farmer to farmer collective. It's not like eBay, where you just put up your product. The business is built on the trust that comes from social networking.

 

Q: how do you drive the relationship building on the non-African side?

 

A: by taking advantage of the distributed population of African immigrants (diaspora). They are a potential early market, and can introduce the service to a wider market

 

Q: why are you focusing on Western buyers, vs. China, India, etc?

 

A: Western markets have been our dominant markets for decades. There are already established business relationships there.

 

Q: how will you reach out to more rural areas & tribes speaking different languages in Kenya?

 

Q: what is your relationship with middle men? How will you deal with international trade, shipping, etc? How will you provide these services?

A: We will facilitate the trade & provide those services. One of the needs we're looking for is someone with experience in international trade.

 

Q: this project really appeals to me because it seems like the available funds can make a big impact on

 

questions from the floor

 

Q: how do you envision your first transactions happening? Will you do some informal ones before rolling out your platform?

 

A: I know a professor who's been very interested in this project and would provide that first interaction, if we build the service well.

 

Q: is it possible to do a transaction through eBay, or any other system now, for trade with Kenya?

 

A: currently those transactions are only between buyers & middlemen. We plan to build our own platform for transactions.

 

Q: how will you tap into the network to prioritize features you want to roll out?

 

A: we want to document the impact this has on actual farmers. Some things can be documented w/ figures, e.g. volatility of cash flow to farmers which impacts whether kids can stay in school. Others are intangible, and can only be

 

Q: it might help to focus on a few specific products in the beginning, to help foster social & business networks

 

A: I agree. That's why I keep talking about coffee, but I envision this expanding to many other products

 

Q: might there be any compatibility between Farmer 2 Farmer & what you're doing?

A: we do think we can work together. I'm more into marketing & he's more into the actual yield, so we inform each other

 

summary of their social impact: improving the actual income of farmers, improving the cash flow so it's predictable, connecting users & the global African diaspora, connecting the social sector, increasing the GDP, capturing people's stories (wikis)

 

 

WiserEarth

 

summary of their social impact: mapping the global movement for environmental justice, and showing people how they are connected. They will help people to know who's out there and create affinities, laying the

 

questions & feedback

 

Q: social networks that are self-aware are more powerful, so there's definite potential for you. I'm concerned about your dependence on user-contributed content. If people haven't come to this themselves already, will they use this now that you've built it?

 

A: WiserEarth comes from a need for people to have more transparency in what they and others are going.

 

A: I came to this work from a global women's environmental network. We saw many women working on the grassroots level, being very effective, but unable to find one another. There are different pieces and tools scattered about; people

 

Q: there are many other like-minded networks; how will you collaborate with them to make sure people can connect with everyone who's interested?

A: we want to have an open API for our data so that in the end it doesn't matter if you come to WiserEarth or not, so long as you get the information & the visibility. We'll be in charge of updating it.

 

A: it's meant to be a springboard, a meta-resource to direct people. If they want to stay and build community, that's good too.

 

Q: how do you envision taking this to a mobile platform?

 

A: it's one of many ways to increase accessibility; we haven't really explored that yet. Our feedback has been more about making the whole platform open source; groups wanting to use the platform for their own existing communities. We will be directed by what our community asks for.

 

Q: how will you measure social impact?

A: we'll use typical web measurements, group/social measurements (e.g. creation of groups, committees). It'll be harder to measure the benefit to people who come for the info they need & leave.

 

A: Also, an increase in the amount of user-added content.

 

questions from the floor

 

Q: is there a method for people to collaboratively work on creating content to upload to the site?

 

A: there are 414 areas of focus that people are organized around. However, often people organize around a region or a set of issues, and people don't want to split. We're talking about enabling network hubs for these kinds of affinities. The real creativity is going to come out of such communities that pull from different issues and perspectives.

 

Q: anyone can edit?

A: anyone can edit on any section, when they log in.

 

Q: wikiPages has a neat collaboration around food systems; check out what they're doing.

 

 

Innovatorz

 

introduction: we help tell stories & act as a conduit/distributor of these stories. Stories drive social change & action. Do the stories of the actors & problem solvers in particular drive it? Are we the right people to tell stories?

 

questions/feedback

 

Q: one impact is on telling the stories within the self-aware network of social innovators & inspiring them. Another impact is on the general population, which is potentially the bigger audience. Is your main focus on forming partnerships with other

 

A: we want to build sites that aggregate all the stories around a particular interest, e.g. education. We've been talking with lots of people at the conference about how to push our content out.

 

Q: we have so many blogs & other forms of media around social entrepreneurs in the US, esp. in the Bay Area. Have you thought about how to reach out internationally, translate stories, etc?

A: we've already working with groups in other countries to figure out how to bring out these stories. Initially, it will still be English because we don't have the capacity yet to do other languages.

 

A: social entrepreneurs are focused on telling the stories of need, not action. World of Good is a good example: they tell stories of . We see this as a resource for people who want to be social entrepreneurs, telling them how to do it based on what others have done.

 

questions from the floor

 

Q: reaching "the public" is hard; it's too vague. Maybe you should focus on reaching groups who need another tool to show what they're doing.

 

A: we want to go to mainstream media to get a hook to bring people in, not just a little sound bite that gets forgotten.

 

Q: are you in conversation with some of the big changemakers, e.g. Skoll, Ashoka?

 

A: yes we're talking to - Social Edge, Change Makers, and more

 

 

Q: do you have plans for linking the conversations together that come out of different projects?

 

A: [time is up]