DemoBlog

New Blog

2007-04-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

DemoBlog and I have had a good run. Well, not really, I hardly ever wrote here. Which is why I am beginning a new blog - ZapBoom - and abandoning dear old DemoBlog forever. ZapBoom will have a more natural style, though it will talk about the same political/technological concerns. My goal is to write a post every day, so you might even have a reason to come by and check it out at http://zapboom.bligoo.com/

BTW: You may notice that it is on a very cool new social blogging platform called Bligoo, which was developed by my boyfriend. Create an account for yourself and become part of the family.

My NTC Presentation

2007-03-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

I won't be able to attend the Nonprofit Technology Conference next week in DC as I will be in Nigeria working on a consulting job for the OpenNet Initiative. Nevertheless, I'll be presenting my article "Leapfrogging Borders: Social Change Technology in the Global South and its Implications for American NTAPs" at the conference via video. Here it is, five minutes of fun for your viewing pleasure. ;)

The URL for the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxxgpEj0UIM

Think Digg: How NGOs Can Read Their Members' Minds

2007-02-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

There are many NGOs that ask their members to take part in lobbying campaigns. Greenpeace asks its members to lobby governments around the world on behalf of environmental causes, while Amnesty asks them to lobby on behalf of human rights. Moveon asks its members to lobby Congress on behalf of progressive causes in the US. But how do these organizations decide which issues to create campaigns around? How do they know that their campaign will inspire members' participation?

Whether by periodic polling of members or by making the decision internally based on the group's stated priorities, NGOs today do not have effective means of continuously monitoring the policy priorities of their members. This is not because a tool does not exist, but rather because that tool has not been adapted to a social change purpose.

The tool is Digg, a website that allows its members to vote ("digg") news articles, pushing popular pieces up to the top of the homepage. In this way, Digg democratically ranks its articles according to member interest:

While Digg proports to tell what news is cool, what it is really reporting on is what it's members think is cool. The ability of democratic ranking sites like Digg to take the pulse of a group of users could be put to use by social change organizations. Instead of voting on what news is cool, members could vote on what public policy issues are important to them.

For example, let's say Greenpeace wants to create a citizen lobbying campaign wherein it will ask its members to send personalized e-mails to the US Congress in order to encourage the US to take a stronger stand on fighting global warming. What should the content of the campaign be? Asking for a resolution that recognizes the the effects of global warming or a specific proposition to address the problem, like subsidizing research into alternative fuels or joining the Kyoto Protocol? What type of anti-global warming campaign is most likely to resonate with members?

This is where a Digg-like web feature could be very useful. Greenpeace would check its democratic ranking site (which would be located on the Greenpeace website) and see what types of environmental news stories its members had been voting on. If, for example, stories about subsidizing alternative fuels ranked high on the list, this might encourage Greenpeace staff to choose an alternative fuel campaign.

This is not to imply that an organization's lobbying should always be decided by referendum. In many cases, staff are more informed about the success factors for a lobbying campaign than are members. Democratic ranking sites should not determine lobbying campaigns, but rather aid in campaign decision making by revealing the priorities of members.

Digg-like polling will not work for every lobbying group. It would be a poor choice for the AARP, because most of its members are not active internet users (though this is likely to change as the Boomers age). Demogratic ranking sites would be most effective for social change organizations whose members are used to interacting with the organization online (MoveOn, Avaaz) or whose members are part of the internet generation (Greenpeace).

Democratic ranking sites presents interesting opportunities for social change organizations to better engage with their members. I hope some of these organizations decide to test the technology's potential.

categories: internet activism_, cool tools_

technorati tags:
digg,
moveon,
greenpeace,
amnestyinternational,
aarp,
NGO,

Another Project Done

2007-02-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

The Gates research project officially ended at the end of January. My project manager, Ricken, submitted it to the Gates Foundation last week and now I am just waiting for official permission to distribute the final report to the people I interviewed during the research process. Hopefully, the report will become public domain, in which case I will also post it on my website.

The day I finished the Gates report I received an e-mail saying that the abstract I submitted for my article,"Leapfrogging Borders: Social Change Technology in the Global South and its Implications for American NTAPs" was accepted to run in the new Journal of IT in Social Change. So I spent last week fleshing out the abstract into a full article. In addition to appearing in the journal, I am get to be part of a panel of authors at NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington in April. That should be fun.

This weekend Paolo and I are visiting friends in Santa Cruz, a tourist-friendly wine region near Santiago. It will be nice to take a vacation after all this writing!

Good News about Cell Phones

2007-02-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

It appears that national internet/cell phone penetration rates are not particularly important in determining whether an e-advocacy campaign will be successful within a particular population.

-Filipino President Joseph Estrada was deposed by students using SMS to organize rallies in a "coup de text" when the national cell phone penetration rate was only 15%.

-The Jessica Lall protests occurred in India when national cell phone penetration was only 7%.

National ICT penetration rates matter much less than the penetration rates of the target audience, such as students in Manila or the citizens of New Delhi. Unfortunately, statistics on specific populations are unlikely to be available and qualitative"micro penetration rates" will probably need to be determined through interviews with members of the target group.

Gates Project 24: Final Edits

2007-01-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

I've received a couple of queries as to where in the work process we are. In answer to those questions, we are in the finishing-it-up-an-turning-it-in phase. We will be submitting the report to the Gates Foundation at the end of this month.

Dear SaveDarfur.org: Let's Link

2007-01-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

Dear SaveDarfur.org,

I am a member of Save Darfur and I am frustrated that few Americans are concerned about the crisis there. I think this is principally due to ignorance. To Americans, Darfur is a buzzword, a distant sound bite, an iconic tragedy, that is not fully real. How can you understand the lives of a group of people if you only see them for 30 seconds a day serving as a backdrop for a news anchor's "special report"?

I propose that we remove the media and make the connection between Americans and Darfuris direct. I propose that we replace the soundbite with a connection that lasts 24 hours a day. I propose a live voice and video link between Darfur and America.

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyya 24-hour video link between the US and Darfur

Put a video screen in Time Square that shows Darfuris simple living their daily lives. At every moment Americans will know what is happening in Darfur. Put an equivalent screen in Darfur. Consider adding voice, even though language would be a problem, so that people can speak to each other and the project does not become voyeuristic.

Let the link develop a life of its own. Maybe people will be angry, or curious, or suspicious. Who knows? But it will mark a new phase in how we see human tragedies, not filtered through the media but directly human-to-human. The results could be amazing.

Best,
Mary

categories: the "developing world"_
images: spangleddrongo and djchuang

technorati tags:
darfur,
sudan,
savedarfur,

Neologism #2837: The Communication Age

2006-12-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

You may have heard that we are living in the Information Age. Well, not for much longer. We are moving into the Communication Age and man, it'll be a trip. In the Information Age, information moves faster and more broadly than people themselves, aided by international telecommications. However, the Information Age is also centralized. Businesses and media organizations generate information, and they may or may not choose to grant access to the general public. In the communication age, people will be sharing information with each other.

Information AgexxCommunication Age
centralizedxxxxxxxxxxxxxxdecentralized
grantingxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxaccess sharing
created by professionalsxxxcreated by groups of knowledgeable amateurs
hierarchyxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxheterarchy
controlxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfreedom
governmentsxxxxxxxxxxxxcitizen movement
consumptionxxxxxxxxxxxxxcreation

In a way the distinction between information and communications is false, as all information in the Information Age is communicated. However, in the Communication Age, person-to-person information flows will become more evident. Hallmarks of the information age, like free online versions of newspapers, will diminish in importance as citizen journalism becomes more sophisticated. As information will be gathered and analyzed in a decentralized way, intellectual propery rights will decrease in importance. Citizen movements will challenge governments as never before as citizens around the world organize for concerted action. If you are searching for the future, don't look up. Look in.

categories: internet activism_,

technorati tags:
informationage,
information,
communication,

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-22T04:39:00.000-08:00

Here is a Christmas card from the activist organization Atina Chile, one of the subjects of my research this past summer. The subtitle reads: "a small change generates a great benefit." I am living in Chile now where I plan to continue my digital activism work until next fall when I return to the US for grad school.

Whose World Are You Living In?

2006-12-17T21:13:00.000-08:00

Riding home on the commuter train last week it dawned on me: we're still in the stone age. I was looking out the window at the dank swamp of polluted marshland, power lines, and industrial plants that separate New York City from the New Jersey suburbs. It all seemed so primitive, not in terms of technological progress, but in terms of human progress.

A small group of people with access to large amounts of capital see opportunities to accumulate even more capital: industry, international brands, mass consumption and mass waste. It is they who have created the world that we live in. We work at their jobs, shop in their malls, eat their food, dream their dream of ever increasing prosperity. Why are we living in their world? Why aren't we creating our own?

Like all generations before us, we are living in modernity. But if your idea of human progress involves goals like universal acccess to education, health, information, employment, and self expression then we have barely begun our development.

Our system is not working. The goal of work for pay for consumption is not sustainable. There is little debate that this lifestyle is destroying the planet. However, it is also destroying ourselves. Most people spend the majority of their waking moments doing work they don't like to earn money to buy things they don't need. However, for most of the world's citizens even dull work and unecessary consumption is but a faint dream. They see this broken way of life that we enjoy in the West and they want in on it. But what would be the result of mass adoption of the Western lifestyle? A degraded planet unfit for life, a planet of degraded souls.

We need a new system, but it can't be founded on something as flimsy as values. Values are pretty, but they are too easily undermined and co-opted. And anyway, the people with the power to change the system are too cynical to believe in them. Self-restaint, rejecting the quest for wealth, taking an active interest in the well-bing of people we've never met, thinking in the long term: we humans have never been too good at those behaviors. We've been too intent on survival. It's time that we realize our survival depends on changing those behaviors.

photo: kouchi

Who Exactly is Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution?

2006-12-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

Zack Exley, organizer of the RootsCamp and founder of the New Organizing Institute, has started a conversation on "really big picture politics" by way of a google group. Not questions like "how are we going to help our candidate win?" but "what kind of society do we want to create?" and "how do we create it?" Ya know, the big stuff.

I think this is great. Even the most idealistic of us often spend too much time focusing on the short term - on this crisis, that campaign. There are many directions Zack's conversation could go and it'll be interesting to see what ideas are proposed.

The thing I am most interested in now is who's at the table. Who will participate in this conversation? Ideally, not only smart and innovative people with some practical experience of what they're talking about.

And here I come to the issue of demographics. The RootsCamp participants, myself included, were overwhelmingly middle class and white, which means that our ideas about social change and revolution have more to do with empathy than personal experience.

revolutionaries?

We want an end to war, though we have never seen one. We want an end to poverty, though we have never been poor. We want an end to corruption, though we have never had to pay a bribe to a government official. We want to end global warming though we all have air conditioning. We want an end to racism though we are rarely judged negatively based on the color of our skin.

How hard will we fight for revolutionary change if the basis for our struggle is not personal experience but empathy? There are probably those who will disagree, but I think an "empathizer" will never fight for a cause as hard as the personal actually affected could if they were given the capacity to act.

My passion is social change tech in the developing world. The reason I am passionate about this field is that I see technologies like e-mail, text messaging, blogs, and browers as ways to empower the powerless by giving them an inexpensive mass means of communication, organization, information, and message dissemination (sorry for the rhyming). I think that empowering the powerless should be a central goal in any revolution. Don't be a leader. Teach your followers how to lead themselves.

Photo: David Boyle

categories: internet activism_, the "developing world"

technorati tags:
neworganizinginstitute,
noi,
rootscamp,
rootscampdc,

RootsCampDC

2006-12-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

OK, better post on what I did last weekend before next weekend arrives. I spent last Saturday and Sunday in Washington at RootsCampDC, a progressive campaign debrief looking back to the midterms and forward to 2008. Since I'm mentally exhausted from writing the Gates report, this will be a photo post.

1. Saturday was mad crowded. The event was designed for 250 and 400 people showed up. Witness that it was standing room only at the welcome session. Nevertheless, everyone introduced themselves.

2. The bribe to get people to show up on time was mimosas. To the organizers' credit, they were fully stocked. This is the New Organizing Institute's Micah Canal.

3. As an unconference, attendees created their own sessions and posted them on a huge board.

4. Awkward networking ensued.

5. My favorite session was by former Dean for America campaign manager Joe Trippi. The man is fookin' brilliant. My favorite take-away was that the democratizing effect of online fundraising (you can now raise large amounts of money by taking small donations from many people rather than large donations from a few) is going to destroy the traditional party system, because the parties main source of control over their candidates is that they hold the pursestrings. This is a bad blurry picture of Trippi (on the left) with blogger Matt Stoller.

5. This is NOI founder Zack Exley at the session he led on Sunday. He asked us not to blog about it, but suffice it to say that he is also brilliant and takes issues of politics, progressivism, and organizing to a whole 'nother level. He's one of those hard-nosed passionate idealists that you thought didn't exist anymore.

Thanks to noneck, David Boyle, and clockwerks for the photos

categories: internet activism_,

technorati tags:
neworganizinginstitute,
noi,
rootscamp,
rootscampdc,

Digital Organizations Are Gonna Change the World

2006-12-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

The internet has already changed the way we learn, work, shop, and socialize. In the future it will also have a greater and greater impact on how social change occurs, not only as a medium for activism but also a means of creating new types of social enterprises. These changes will occur not only in the wealthy nations of North America, Europe, and East Asia but globally. In fact, it is in the developing world that the internet can have the greatest impact on social movements, enabling campaigns and organizations that were previously impossible due to lack of resources.

Because the internet is a low-cost network for global communication it enables “digital organizations.” In place of the overhead costs of a centralized office, organization members are located around the world and keep in constant contact through low-cost communication devices like internet telephony (VoIP), instant messaging, and e-mail. In place of a front lobby, people interact with the organization over a website which includes information about the organization’s mission and activities. In place of mass-mailings, free e-mail is used. In place of expensive fundraisers for a core of wealthy donors, hundreds of supporters give solicited micro-donations through the organization’s website. In place of ten full-time paid staff members, the global network allows thirty part-time volunteers to take on leadership responsibility and donate their services for free, with a core team of two or three full-time staff coordinating their efforts.

This model has already been tried in the United States, where the progressive grassroots organization MoveOn uses the internet to raise money and keep costs down while relying on a skeleton staff and a network of thousands of part-time volunteers coordinated over the internet. However, I am convinced that the real opportunity for digital organizations is in the developing world, where the increasing availability of online tools lowers the cost of organization and campaign creation and makes civic participation possible for people with very few personal resources and without access to venture capital or philanthropic grants.

categories: internet activism_, the "developing world"_, digital organizations_

technorati tags:
internet,
moveon,

Gates Project 23: Thinking Outside the Geographic Box

2006-12-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

from my section on innovation...

Lack of money and expertise are among the greatest limitations to e-advocacy in the global south. However, this ignores the fact that much of the global south lives in the global north. Diasporas and mass emigration have shaped history since time immemorial and that trend still holds true today, although the dynamics have changed.

As ICTs make a person's geographic location less and less important members of the diaspora are able to share their resources with their home countries as never before. Members of diasporas are using ICTs to stay engaged in politics and their home countries and even take part in activism. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where only 1% of the population has internet access, political bloggers write for a diaspora population, who get involved in local politics by donated money to politicians.

The Bangladeshi diaspora website Drishtipat.org goes a step further It uses PayPal to collect money for aid projects from members through its chapters in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, and then funnels the money to Bengali SCOs who implement Drishtipat's project. By thinking outside the geographic box and helping diaspora members share their financial resources and skills, ICTs can engage new actors in solving the global south's many challenges.

Unintentional Irony Award

2006-11-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

The words "development" and "Ritz-Carlton" should never appear so close to each other. That doesn't exactly show concern for the lives of the impoverished. Folks, it's just tacky. Here's the link.

Gates Project 22: Mobile Activism Networks

2006-11-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

Another section of the report, this one on network-centric activism:

According to Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs, network-centric techniques allow people to act in concert even if they do not know each other. Unlike the CRM wheel, where all communication is initiated by the central NGO hub, network-centric models connect the spokes to one another, allowing information to flow freely without any central arbitration necessary. In the diagram above, an organization (represented by a purple circle) has begun the networked flow of information, although initiation could also be accomplished by an individual activist (the orange circles). The communication arrows are both mono-directional and bi-directional, indicating the sometimes members of a network exchange data in a dialogue while at other times a message is simply transferred from one person to the other.

Although computers can be used to communicate within a network, mobile phones offer exciting new possiblilities for the model. The value of a network increases as the number of its members increases, making cell phones a more valuable networking tool in the developing world due to their higher penetration. The mobility of the cell phone increases its value as well, enabling mobile networked action. The result of high penetration and mobility is light-speed mobilization, the political application of "flash mobbing." An excellent example of this technique was the mass protest that led to the downfall of Filipino President Joseph Estrada in 2001. Using text messages such as "Other students are already marching. Where are you?" and "wear red, bring banners" Filipino students organized a mass march that successfully demonstrated the unpopularity of the regime. President Estrada himself called it a "coup de text." Kifaya, a pro-democracy movement in Egypt, also uses texting to organize protests as did students in Chile who were striking for improvements to the education system.

Network-centric mobile activism is seductively simple. Massive events can be created with little or no effort or cost. It will all happen "virally." However, in the context-free world of the SMS message this is not the case. Network-centric activism is merely a digital representation of the zeitgeist. People all have to have the same frame of reference in order for network-centric activism to work. If the recipient or the message "wear red, bring banners" did not already know that a rally to force the ouster of president Estrada was in the works for that day, the message would have been meaningless. For this reason, network-centric activism works best within pre-existing communities. The pre-existing knowledge and shared values of the community ensures that an SMS call to action will be understood and heeded, while the network of relationships within the community ensure that the message will spread. Once again, it is less a question of technology than the human power behind it.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_,

technorati tags:
gatesfoundation,
eadvocacy,
mobile,
networkcentric,

Gates Project 21: CRM in the GS

2006-11-29T14:04:00.001-08:00

Enough acronyms! This post is a section of my report that looks at the possiblities of Client Relationship Management (like MoveOn) in the Global South.

CRM, or client relationship management, was born in the private sector as a means for businesses to track their relationships with customers and solicit feedback. The model supposes a central NGO (the hub) which communicates directly with its members/constituents (the spokes), usually through e-mail. IN the diagram above, the orange circles represent participant members and the large purple circle represents the NGO. The arrows show the direction of communication, with the outward arrows drawn larger than the inward arrows to indicate that the volume of information pushed out to the members is greater than the amount of feedback pulled in to the organization.

One example of CRM for e-advocacy is MoveOn, which records member information, such as geographic location, in a database and then uses this information to recruit members for campaigns and events in their area. MoveOn also solicits feedback from its members through e-mail surveys in an effort to keep the actions of the organization in line with the interests of its members. CRM is most appropriate for an organization who has the budget to pay one or more developers to create content for their system and plans to launch multiple campaigns. If an organization does not plan to take part in e-advocacy frequently, setting up a CRM system may be a waste of time and money.

The principal challenge of using CRM in that most people in the global south do not use e-mail, the most effective method of communication between in the NGO and its members. While a NGO may find sufficient internet penetration in urban areas, it is unlikely that it will be able to launch a nation-wide campaign in most countries for this reason. In addition, even where people do have internet access, it is usually not through a computer that they access every day, but through a shared computer in a telecenter. If members rarely check their e-mail little more than once a week, the internet may not be the best way to keep in touch with them.

One possible solution to this problem is to use cellular phone-based SMS in place of computer-based e-mail. Cell phone penetration in most countries is sufficiently high to merit this type of model to work. If a cell phone is used in place of a computer, two modes of communication are possible: SMS and voice. SMS is an excellent way to contact members after the person has given their phone number to the NGO either through a website or by texting a particular phone number that records the users phone number in a database. The challenge of SMS is that the message is limited in most cases to 160 characters. For this reason SMS is best used for a campaign action is clear and concise so it can be expressed in the given amount of space. The positive aspect of this method is that SMS may actually draw young people to a campaign becuse of its cool factor. Automated robo-calling may also be used to communicate with an illiterate or minimally literate audience. Callers could respond by voice or by sending a simple numeric SMS. SMS has been successfully used as an e-advocacy tool in the global south by Fahamu of South Africa, which asked supporters to sign a petition supporting women's rights in Africa by sending an SMS message and a free mass SMS client, FrontlineSMS, is available for NGOs to use. However, the ongoing interaction characteristic of CRM has not yet been realized in the field using cell phones.

Implementers of CRM may also face difficulty in authoritarian political environments. CRM necessitates that a person give their contact information to a NGO so that organization may contact them on an ongoing basis to solicit their participation in the organization's campaigns. In countries where political activism is discouraged, individuals may be unwilling to give their contact information to a NGO for fear that these records may become public and will get them in trouble with the authorities. For this reason, CRM implementers is such environments must create iron-clad security systems, most likely involving encryption and overseas servers in order to guarantee the confidentiality of their members' personal information.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_,

technorati tags:
gatesfoundation,
eadvocacy,
moveon,
crm,

Gates Project 20: First Paragraph

2006-11-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

This week I begin writing the final report. I'll putting tid-bits on the blog as I go. Here's my first paragraph:

Why fund social change technology in the global south? The needs in the region are so acute - civil conflict, illiteracy, poverty, food and water insecurity, the ravages of disease - why fund ICTs when one could buy vaccines or provide emergency food aid? Funding e-advocacy in the global south takes a long view. It asks us to take our eyes from the crises of today and ask how crises will be solved tomorrow. The only way that the many challenges of the global south will be solved in the longterm is if the citizens of the global south are empowered to solve their own problems. E-advocacy is a means of this empowerment. Funding e-advocacy means not only attacking current crises in the global south but building a structure through which future global south crises will be addressed from within, empowering local civil society to better address the world's many challenges. The mass accessiblity of ICT is changing the way we work, consume, inform ourselves, and socialize. Because ICT allows citizens to watch their governments, discuss their political views, and organize around issues that concern them, it is an equally powerful political tool. E-advocacy is the future of social change.

categories: internet activism_,gates project_

technorati tags:
gatesfoundation,
eadvocacy,
globalsouth,

RootsCampNYC

2006-11-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I went to RootsCampNYC, a election debriefing and Democrat unconference for digital activists in New York. I went there to meet Zack Exley, whose New Organizing Institute co-organized the event, and also to get out of the office and see some e-advocates in the real work. It was also my first unconference. I must admit, I was suspicious of this model, according to which you bring a group of people together under a determined theme but without a determined schedule of events. The themes and facilitators of the workshops are determined by the interest of the people who attend. At RootsCampNYV there was a large corkboard timetable in the main meeting room (see photo below) and people put scraps of paper on the board with the titles of workshop that they would lead.
I decided to lead a session on e-advocacy in the developing world (big surprise there) which was a bit of a failure because I didn't have anything prepared. However, I attended workshops by better-prepared people on such topics as the netroots and the Connecticut Senate race and a website called the Spotlight Project that allows people to send blog posts to members of the media. While there are some downsides to the unconference format (there were more sessions in the afternoon than the morning as people became inspired to add a session) the strength of the format is that it is very engaging. Because sessions are ad hoc they are more seminar than lecture and there is tons of discussion (see below).
The unconference model is most useful when you have a lot of smart people with something to share, because it amps participation. Without attendee participation there are no workshops, and not much said within them. Fortunately, the attendees at Sunday's event were very smart and talkative. There were other RootsCamps in San Francisco, Indiana, and Ohio and hopefully I will be attending the capstone event in DC on December 1 & 2.

categories: internet activism_,

technorati tags:
rootscamp,
rootscampnyc,
newyork,

Armchair Activism - ironic no more

2006-11-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

I just recieved an e-mail from Marty Kearns of Network-Centric Advocacy, asking me to write about a program that chops mammoth data tasks into 12-minute chunks in the hopes that everyone will contrinute a bit of their time and get the job done. It's the barn-raising principle, except you can do it from your armchair.

www.mediavolunteer.org is a portal created by Marty's Green Media Toolshed to help produce an accurate media database for advocacy groups so they can promote their causes. The Media Volunteer project asks people to take twelve minutes to log onto the Media Volunteer website and call a reporter or media outlet and confirm that the information in the Shared Media Database is correct.

I think the challenge in getting people to adopt this project will be making it personal and social. Even though the project is easy enough, volunteers might not see the direct benefit to themselves or their causes. The site is set up geographically, so people are calling reporters in their own area, which is great. (The user interface is also super). However, I think the project will need to create a community vibe in order to be successful.

A good model to look to here are the immensely successful MoveOn Phone Parties which preceded the election. MoveOn did not ask people to access a call list on a website and call undecided voters from the comfort of their own homes. They organized Phone Parties, which created a community vibe around the not-so-pleasant task of making cold calls to perfect strangers. The parties were completely unnecessary from a technical perspective. People could have received the names and phone numbers of voters by accessing a website. In fact, Phone Parties made the process of making calls more time-consuming since people were asked to travel to another person's house to do the calling. However, community became the draw that inspired people to get involved. It worked - spectacularly. According to MoveOn:

* Jon Tester's margin of victory in MT: 2,644
* MoveOn member turnout calls to MT: 73,843

* Jim Webb's margin of victory in VA: 7,236
* MoveOn member turnout calls to VA: 345,289

If the Media Volunteer project is going to work, I think it will also need a community aspect, either in the form or meet-ups or, even better, groups of NGO's that need the information organizing their own volunteers into Phone Parties. This model usies pre-existing organization networks to "get out the call." It's a good project and I hope it succeeds.

technorati tags:
moveon,
mediavolunteer,
greenmediatoolshed,
martykearns,

Gates Project 19: Considering e-Government

2006-11-16T10:39:00.000-08:00

I don't think I'm going to include e-government in my e-advocacy report. This is because e-government is not e-advocacy. e-Advocacy is the actions of citizens and citizen groups using ICTs to realize social change. Government is often the focus of these efforts, as government controls rule making (ie, makes laws). However, government itself does not push for change; it responds to pressure from advocates and lobbyists. Although government can serve as an advocate, due to its role as protector of civil rights, e-government rarely takes on this role.

e-Government is government using ICT's to function more efficiently. This is an important improvement over the inefficiency and corruption that are a part of many human bureaucratic systems. However, but it does not imply social change. A country might have a unnecessarily difficult divorce law that might require meetings with a judge, a court hearing, and lots of paperwork before a couple is allowed to divorce. The e-advocacy approach to this might be to rally citizen support to change the law through an e-petition, e-mail your representative campaign, or even the collecting video or audio testimonials of people trying to get divorced and created a multimedia gallery. The e-government response to this situation would be to allow people to download the large amounts of paperwork from a website and sign up for their court date online. More efficient, sure, but it doesn't mean that the law itself is disfunctional.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that government rarely gives its citizens opportunities to influence legislating. e-Government often engages citizens at the lowest level of governance - bureaucratic paperwork. In this way even a repressive government like Saudi Arabia can have a e-government initiative. According to i4donline, the Council of Ministers allocated $800 million for an e-government project that will bring 150 government service and 1,000 "subsidiary services" under an e-government system. I doubt this new system will allow citizens to take any part in the higher functions of govern like law-making and oversight in the famously opaque monarchical system.

Most e-government systems tightly define the way citizens can use the system to interact with their government (ie, fill in this form, sign-up for this time). I welcome e-government efforts that allow citizens to express themselves in a less structured way, to advocate. This more open form of e-government would need to include procedures to ensure that citizen input would actually influence decision-making processes, rather than just being pro-forma. Still, I welcome this kind of e-government, which would engage citizens in the most important work of government: making the rules that govern citizens' lives.

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Gates Project 18: eRiders + network = supercharged

2006-11-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Ever since I read Wired magazine founder Kevin Kelly's New Rules for the New Economy in August I have been fascinated by the power of networks. To wit:

1. In a network, every node is potentially equidistant from every other node (immediate direct communication is possible)

2. In a network, the more nodes are connected, the more powerful the network is as a whole (more knowledge, money, etc. can be shared)

3. The multitude of relationships and the vast amount of knowledge-sharing possible in a network promotes innovative thinking and practice

However, for some reason unbeknownst to myself I had never applied my fascination with networks to the proposals I was writing for the Gates Foundation. Fortunately, today I spoke with Paul Maassen, who works at the innovative Dutch development foundation Hivos. Paul is the Program Manager for Hivos' ICT, Media, and Knowledge-Sharing program. I went through my funding proposals with Paul and he added network elements at each level, strengthening all three.

However, the section that was most improved was the implementation section, which focuses on funding eRider consultants. My original idea was to expand eRiding to different countries, but I hadn't particularly thought of connecting these programs. Paul pushed me think more ambitiously, not only to fund eRiders on a global scale but to connect them, creating a worldwide network of NGO tech consultants.

This network would have multiple benefits, for instance in disseminating and receiving information. One of the weaknesses of the e-advocacy sector is the lack of awareness of what tools are out there and how to use them. A global network would make spreading this information quite easy. In fact, there would be only one step between the tech conference in Delhi and the grassroots NGO is Ecuador - an e-mail to the Ecuador eRider program.

The second benefit of the network would be receiving information. If someone wanted to create software for the developing world, eRiders would be a great source of information as to what organizations really need.

However, the true strength of a network is not central information dissemination and collection, but decentralized node-to-node communication. Face-to-face convenings would foster a global eRider community that would create personal relationships between eRiders in different countries. So when an eRider in South Africa had a problem, he might e-mail his eRider friend in India. In this way, expertise would travel spontaneously, without the need for central coordination.

A global network of NGO tech experts sharing expertise and speeding e-advocacy implementation and innovation - I like it!

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Gates Project 17: Is it elegant yet?

2006-11-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

I have come up with a provisional structure for our funding proposals to the Gates Foundation. I want our final proposal to be far-reaching, holistic, and elegant, appreciating the complexity of e-advocacy while at the same time proposing solutions in a simple structure. My goal is a proposal that is not just judicious and well-researched, but also well-designed. I currently plan to suggest funding at three levels that represent the foundation, function, and future of e-advocacy:

1. Access: In the global south, access to internet is quite low, rarely rising about a 15% penetration rate and often dipping below 5%. While high cellphone penetration rates, which are often several times as high internet rates, can make up for this loss in connectivity, internet access is extremely important because it is a platform for a much wider array of e-advocacy applications. There are multiple funding opportunities for access, and Iwill most likely focus on Africa, where internet acces is lowest. I am currently leaning towards solar-powered wireless solutions.

2. Implementation: It does not matter what technologies are available for non-profits in the global south if they are unaware of them or unable to implement them. In order to increase NGO e-advocacy capacity, a broad program of personalized support is needed. I will most likely propose an eRider program. eRiders are technology and strategy consultants that work with multiple organizations, thus allowing each organization that they work for the benefit of a technology expert without the cost of hiring a new staff person. The eRider model has been successfully implemented in South Africa and many other developing and transitional countries throughout the world.

3. Innovation: A funding structure that stops at the implementation of existing tools is incomplete. The field of e-advocacy in the global south is quite new and the greatest innovations are yet to come. In addition, it is very important that innovations are shared so that others may benefit from them. The final proposal is for a program to nurture innovation in the area of e-advocacy in the global south. The program would be run by a coalition of global south organizations and would carry out many activities such as: a fellows program to develop e-advocacy leaders in the region, conferences and convenings to allow innovators from different countries and fields to meet and share ideas face-to-face, cataloguing and pointing to the different advocacy tools already available in order to raise awareness of e-advocacy options, prizes for innovation in various e-advocacy fields both to encourage and reward innovators.

Is it elegant yet? If not, why?

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_,

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Gates Project 16: We Are All "Developing"

2006-11-07T14:10:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of this week I took a break from my non-stop interviewing to read two important reports, InfoDev's Open Access Models, about connectivity solutions in Africa, and dotOrganize's Online Technology for Social Change.

The Open Access report was an informational bootcamp that gave me a good sense of the technological, political, and market-based reasons for Africa's digital poverty. It looked not only at infrastructural problems (Africa has only one major fiber optic cable linking it to the rest of the world) but also the historic government-supported telecom monopolies that prevent market competition from working effectively to bring down prices and improve services.

The dotOrganize Report was very useful, not to mention surprising. I found that the global south and global north are not so different when it comes to e-advocacy - all regions of the world are struggling to use technology strategically in their advocacy. According to a survey of US and Canadian organizations, many organizations surveyed did not use basic e-advocacy tools:

-39% do not use e-newsletter
-47% do not accept donations online

In addition, a majority of organizations have not integrated cutting-edge technologies into their activism

-only 3% use podcasting
-only 4% use public wikis
-only 9% use SMS

In addition, organizations in the US and Canada identify lack of time, money, and trained staff as the top reasons for this not adopting technology, problems that would also resonate in the global north. Also, the majority of US and Canadian organizations that do use technology in their advocacy use e-mail or have a basic website, which is the same case in the global south.

This is not to say that the civil societies of the global north and global south face precisely the same technology problems. Clearly civil societies in the global south must contend with very limited budgets, low internet penetration among supporters, inadequate connectivity infrastructure, and even political contrainsts on freedom of expression.

Rather than claiming a parallel sitution, I am pointing out that the global south will not be playing "catch up" to the global north in integrating e-advocacy strategies into their work. No country in the world has a "developed" e-advocacy environment. In this field we are all "developing."

Moreover, the global south has the opportunity to innovate and leapfrog, by-passing the global north by creating low-cost new advocacy methods and solutions. This capacity is clearest in the field of mobile phones, which have been used for major political organizing in the global south as early as 2001, when SMS was used to rally a protest that helped toppled President Joseph Estrada. (President Estrada himself called it a "coup de text.") Because a relatively high penetration rates for mobile phones, as compared to low penetration rates for internet, the mobile phone is a tool whose potential as a tools for e-advocacy in the global south is just beginning. It could be a defining tool for resource-poor NGO's looking for a way to organize on a mass level.

Or not. That's the great thing about innovation, you just don't know where it's leading. And I see no reason why the global south can't lead this revolution.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_, leapfrogging_

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Gates Project 15: "E-Mail Your MP" where MP's have no e-mail

2006-11-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

"E-mail Your MP/Congressperson" is a standard tool in the e-advocacy toolkit. Some organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union, ask their supporters to e-mail a pre-written letter to their representative which lobbies for a particular ACLU cause. Other organizations, like Britain's WritetoThem.com provide politicians' contact info and allow citizens to write a letter to their representative on any topic they'd like.

This e-advocacy method is not without its critics. In particular, mass e-mail campaigns are often blocked or ignored by representatives. Such campaigns are seen as spam which overload e-mail clients and do not necessarily reflect deep concern on the part of the sender. These point-and-click campaigns allow a constituent to send a pre-written letter to their representative in a few minutes, with little or no pre-meditation.

Nevertheless, a constituent's ability to communicate with his representative and receive a response is a basic tenet of an accountable governmental system. E-mail can facilitate this communication by greatly increasing its speed and convenience while decreasing its cost.

However, are these methods appropriate for the global south? In most of the developing world, internet penetration is very low and many people do not use e-mail. In addition, representatives themselves may not use e-mail or, because government structures lack transparency and accountability, may not make their e-mail addresses public.

Today I spoke with Tom Steinberg, founder of mySociety.org, a UK group that develops websites that help citizens communicate with government and with eachother to in order to realize tanglible improvements in their everyday lives. After looking at WritetoThem.com, which is one of Tom's projects, I asked him how it could work in a developing country where representatives did not have public e-mail addresses. Tom's answer was simple and brilliant: use paper to provide last mile connectivity between constituent and representative. Constituents could send an e-mail to their representative by accessing a website on a shared computer in an internet cafe. All e-mails would be sent to a central address and printed out periodically (say, once a week). The paper copies would then be delivered to the Parliament building where they could be distributed to MP's.

According to Tom, such a "E-mail Your MP" campaigns are a great way to highlight a lack of accountability by members of government. Two weeks after a constituent e-mails their representative through the site, the site would e-mail the constituent and ask if the representative ever responded to their e-mail. The responses to these follow-up e-mails are used to create statistics on the percentage of e-mails a respresentative responds to.
When the ranking of the differing responsiveness rates of different politicians (called a "league table") is then published it has been shown (in the UK context) to encourage some politicians to get better at responding to their mail. How? Quite simply, nobody likes appearing at the bottom of a list of their peers.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_,

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Gates Project 14: Global Map of Digital Inclusion (& Exclusion)

2006-11-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

Today I found a very cool map created by the World Economic Forum that shows global digital access in the form of a nifty color-coded map. The accompanying text explains how the map was created and includes links to the latest statistics on internet and mobile phone penetration all over the world. A very handy public resource.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_, the digital divide_

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Gates Project 13: What is e-advocacy?

2006-10-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

Throughout my work on this project I have been wondering how to define e-advocacy. Wikipedia, my grail of all human knowledge, defines it as:

the use of communication technologies such as e-mail, web sites, and podcasts to enable faster communications by citizen movements and deliver a message to a large audience. These Internet technologies are used for cause-related fundraising, lobbying, volunteering, community building, and organizing.

However, the exact meaning of e-advocacy seems to be in flux. On Wikipeda, although the URL for the definition is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-advocacy, the page itself prefers the term "internet activism" and is edited frequently. In addition, none of the area experts I have spoken to really like the term e-advocacy, saying that it is too vague.

I agree. One distinction that "e-advocacy" fails to make is separating day-to-day technology use by NGO's from tactical use of technology for a specific goal (using Skype to communicate between offices vs. organizing a rally via SMS). I at first decided that the difference was internal vs. external (as Wikipedia also implies), that e-advocacy is about communicating with supporters or political leaders outside the organization.

Today I posed my question to Stephanie Hankey. Formerly of the Open Society Institute, where she helped establish and develop the Information Communication Technologies for Civil Society project, Stephanie is currently the Executive Director of Tactical Tech, an organization she co-founded which helps NGO's in developing and transitional countries use technology in their advocacy. The organization has a wide range of expertise that ranges from Eastern Europe, to Africa, to South East Asia.

I posed this question to Stephanie: what terminology do you use to differentiate between day-to-day technology use by NGO's and the more active and campaign-based use that we traditionally think of as e-advocacy?

First off, Stephanie shot down my intern/external differentiator (which I was so proud of), pointing out the case of Global Witness, an international organization that exposes and breaks the links between natural resource exploitation, human rights abuses, conflict and corruption. Global Witness uses software developed by police in the UK to track criminal gangs and terrorists to tracks patterns of corruption. This tracking is not external, but it still seems like e-advocacy because it uses technology to actively address a social concern and forms the basis information for later external advocacy.

At last we decided that what separates e-advocacy from day-to-day use was that e-advocacy uses technology as part of a project with a specific public policy end-goal. This definition stresses that the use of the tool is more important than the tool itself and also that e-advocacy does not exist independently, but rather as part of a larger project. In addition, it clarifies that not all technology use by NGO's is e-advocacy. Stephanie and I decided that e-advocacy must be strategic (project -based and goal-oriented, as stated above), whereas day-to-day use of technology is baseline. I wonder if other e-advocacy practioners will find this terminology applicable to their experiences.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 12: Fahamu at the Forefront

2006-10-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

--------------- Firoze Manji receiving the Microsoft Education Award at the Tech Awards Gala in 2005

Last week I interviewed Firoze Manji, the Director of Fahamu, an NGO with offices in the UK and South Africa that uses information and communications technologies to promote social justice in Africa.

Fahamu is really at the forefront of e-advocacy, not only in an African context but in a global context. Again and again throughout our conversation I was impressed by the dynamism and innovation of Fahamu's activities, to wit:

1. a pioneering SMS campaign: An international SMS campaign to collection signatures for a petition pushing for the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. People from across the African continent could sign the petition by SMS and then received an SMS alert from Fahamu when the protocol was ratified by a country.

2. followed by others: Fahamu followed with another SMS campaign in support of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, which has had even more participants than their first campaign. Fahamu is also looking into ways for rural women's associations to use SMS in their activism.

3. and applications to election monitoring: Fahamu will also be taking part in the election monitoring in Kenya for the December 2007 presidential elections. Not surprisingly, they plan to use IT in their efforts, including allowing election monitors to report their findings by SMS and creating an SMS short code that allows Kenyans who witness elections abuse to report what they see via their cell phones.

As you've noticed, a lot of Fahamu's recent work focuses on SMS and cell phones. This is because of the large number of Africans who own cell phones. With growth in cell phone subscriber leaping from 80 to 100 million in 2006 alone, Africa is the world's fastest-growing cell phone market. Using cell phones for e-advocacy also makes a lot of sense in view of the fact that only 14.5 million people on the continent are internet users.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 11: Two SMS Ideas for NGO's

2006-10-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some ideas for helping NGO's use SMS in their campaigns. I developed them with Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net, who is currently a Collaborative Fellow at the Digital Vision Progam as Stanford University.

1. Create an SMS Buying Co-op: The cheapest way to send mass SMS messages is through and SMS aggregator, a company that acts as a middle man between the SMS sender, the SMS receiver, and the operator (phone company). It is cheaper to send large numbers of SMS messages through an aggregator because the aggregator lowers the price of each SMS the more messages you send (operators charge the same price per SMS no matter how many you send). Most small NGO's who want to send SMS as a way to communicate to supporters either do not need so many messages for the cost to go down significantly, or cannot afford them in high quantities. However, if many NGO's bought their messages together they could reap the benefit of buying in bulk. Instead of 5 organizations each buying 10,000 messages at a price of R7/SMS, those 5 organizations could collectively purchase 50,000 messages for R5/SMS. The elegant part of this idea is that is does not necessitate external funding because it works in cooperation with the SMS aggregator's business model. All that is necessary is an aggregator willing to sell to an NGO cooperative at a bulk rate, which makes good business sense as it would help attract NGO's to that particular operator.

2. A Socially Responsible Virtual Operator: On Ken's blog I saw a post about MVNO 's (mobile virtual network operators). Unlike most telecomm operators that own their own infrastructure, MVNO's rent the infrastructure from the traditional operator. For this reason, it is cheaper to start up than a traditional phone company. As MVNO's can set their own rates regardless of the the operator they are renting from, this might be a good way to set up a socially responsible telecom company that would charge lower rates to NGO's.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 10: Cheap is Beautiful

2006-10-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

Today I spoke with Ory Okolloh, a smart and dynamic Kenyan who, along with her mysterious accomplice M, has created the great parliamentary watchdog site Mzalendo ("patriot" in Swahili). Mzalendo allows Kenyans to check on what bills are before Parliament and read about the background of their MP's. By providing information on the activities of the Kenyan Parliament, Mzalendo shines a light where the government prefers it weren't. Said Ory at the Digital Citizens Indaba in September, "In Kenya, you hide information without knowing why you’re hiding it. With technology, you can break that open.”

Other than the site's mission and its content, one of the most beautiful things about Mzalendo is its budget- about $20 a month for web hosting. This low cost is in part due to M's technical expertise, which allowed the site to be created and maintained on a volunteer basis. While highly-skilled and committed volunteers might not be an option for every NGO, the internet is nevertheless an important cost-saving medium for the non-profit sector. The internet makes incredibly powerful communication incredibly cheap and it has been my experience with Demologue.com and the Free Alaa campaign that you can realize projects with a worldwide reach almost for free.

My worry is that providing large funding in the e-advocacy sector could in fact kill the beauty of the internet's cheapness. Injecting funds into small organizations might create large and unwieldy dependent projects rather than efficient and flexible independent ones. Taking large grants that encourage re-structring may in fact create unsustainable structures, as grant-funded changes (like increases in full-time staff) cannot be sustained without further grants. In these cases, one-off grants that fund short-term projects, such as election monitoring, or investing in IT infrastructure may be a better use of grant money since they increase the capability of global south NGO's without also increasing their long-term dependence on grants.

It will be one of my goals in this project to recommend one-off funding that grants "venture capital" to e-advocates with the express understanding that this is start-up money on the path to independence. The venture capital model also casts global south partners in the powerful role of social entrepreneur, reducing the unequal power dynamics that can arise between granters and grantees. Cheap -because it allows sustainability and financial independence - is beautiful.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 9: Access, Adoption, and Appropriation in South Africa

2006-10-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

This is a diagram that I found in a couple of reports by Mark Surman that I really like:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Appropriation
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<--------------------------------------->

------------------------------------------------------Adoption
---------------------------------------<------------------------------------->

------------Access
<-------------------------------->

example: owning a cell phone --------------example: using phone for intended uses -----------example: adapting the tool to personal needs, such
--------------------------------------------------------ssuch as making a call or sending an SMS ------------as using the SMS function to organize a rally
---------------------------------------------------------to a friend

This diagram shows a contiuum of ICT use that begins with having access to a tool (computer, phone) or service (internet, cell network), then continues on to adoption, which connotes regular use of a tool according to its intended purposes, and finishes with appropriation, the stage in which a tool is so thoroughly mastered that the individual /organization can effectively adapt the tool to their own purposes.

In my experience, there are no ready-made e-advocacy tools. By this I mean that every tool must be personalized to be effective. If you want supporters to sign an online petition supporting domestic abuse legislation in Zimbabwe, you cannot go to www.zimprotectpetition.org. You have to go to ThePetitionSite.com and create your own petition with your own specifications. At this point - correct me if I'm wrong - all e-advocacy seems to occur in the appropriation phase of ICT use.

Today I spoke to David Barnard, Executive Director of SANGONet, a South African NGO support network with a focus on promoting ICT use. According to David, while South Africans are still struggling with the internet access problem, most South African NGO's are in the adoption phase. They have a computer with internet access and e-mail but they have not moved on to the appropriation phase of really taking control of internet tools and localizing them the needs of their own organizations. South Africa has the highest number of internet users of any in sub-Saharan Africa, and in the countries northern neighbors - Botswana, Namibia, Malawi - more NGO's are in an earlier phase, still struggling to gain access to the internet. In encouraging NGO's to adopt ICT's David's strategy is "baby steps": a tireless process of talking to individual NGO's in the region through events like SANGONet's yearly ICT's for Civil Society conferences, trainings, and Thetha, SANGONet's ICT discussion forum.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 8: Zimbabwe's Kubatana.net

2006-10-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Today I spoke with Bev Clark, Director of the Zimbabwean NGO Kubatana.net. Kubatana is rare in that it is an African NGO which is extremely active in the field of e-advocacy. Kubatana sends out a regular e-newsletter and e-mail alerts, facilitates workshops to train human rights defenders in the secure use of email and the Internet, hosts webpages for dozens of Zimbabwean NGO's in its Directory, and provides electronic versions of legislation being considered by the Zimbabwean Parliament. Yet, Bev is adamant that the internet is not the be-all and end-all of advocacy. In fact, she says that the internet can make NGO's "lazy" as it allows then to assume that sending out an e-mail or SMS message can replace work in the field.

Operating as an NGO in Zimbabwe is uniquely difficult because of the political and economics situation there. According to the international human rights organization Freedom House:

Zimbabwe's descent into the ranks of the world's most repressive states continued unabated in 2005, the result of a significant decline in both political rights and civil liberties for Zimbabweans. The government of long-time president Robert Mugabe persisted in cracking down on independent media, civil society, and political opponents.... The country's economic crisis worsened, with rampant inflation, massive unemployment, near expulsion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and potentially severe shortages of basic foodstuffs.

Apart from the harassment that regime critics face, the effectiveness of NGO's is also negatively affected by the hyperinflation, which reached an astounding rate of 1,204.6% in August 2006. Hyperinflation not only affects people's ability to buy food and pay rent but also affects their ability to access information. Both internet cafes and newspapers are now prohibitively expensive as wages have not kept pace with rising prices, this in a country already facing 80% unemployment.

As such, the barriers to e-advocacy adoption in Zimbabwe are especially high. Internet access is extremely expensive because of inflation and those that can afford to go to an internet cafe usually check e-mail rather than taking the time to browse the web. NGO's whose e-advocacy initiatives that are seem as overly threatening may be targeted for harassment by the government.

However, there are also more easily controllable human factors that limit e-advocacy adoption. In many Zimbabwean NGO's, only the director has access to the internet. IT resources within NGO's are often not accessible to staff within the Information Department, which comprises e-advocacy activities. When he is out of the office he locks the door, preventing other staff from getting online. In addition, most NGO's do not see the value of e-advocacy, and thus do not devote scarce man-hours and and financial resources to pursuing it.

In order to increase use of e-advocacy in Zimbabwe, Bev suggested giving grants to NGO's with proven track records in the field of e-advocacy so they could train other NGO's in e-advocacy techniques. However, training alone does not ensure adoption. This is due to brain-drain and a lack of knowledge-sharing. Bev expressed frustration that simple ICT training is not enough because people who are trained often leave the country due to seek employment abroad, taking their training with them. Bev also liked Zack's idea of an tech R&D support system for NGOs.

It is a great challenge of this project to develop solutions that will be useful to a broad range of NGO's around the world. Can the same service help NGO's in Indonesia and Zimbabwe? I hope so.

Note: I am interested in speaking to other NGO's in the global south that are e-advocacy practioners. If your organization would like to participate in this research, please contact me at MaryCJoyce@gmail.com.
categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 7: Why Do Organizations Choose e-Advocacy?

2006-10-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

I am interested in having the input of non-profit organizations who use or would like to use e-advocacy techniques in promoting their cause. The goal is to identify the most powerful factors that enable and impede NGO's from adopting e-advocacy techniques and then decide which of these factors can be positively influenced by a foreign donor. So here's my question:

What factors lead NGOs to adopt e-advocacy tactics?

Which of the various enabling and impeding factors (cost of internet access, percentage of supporters that use the internet, limits on freedom of internet expression in your country, the presence of software developers that can create e-advocacy applications for NGO's, awareness of what technlogies are out there, etc) are most important in influencing whether or not your organization uses e-advocacy strategies?

I am interested in responses from all NGO's that use or would like to use e-advocacy techniques in promoting their cause. Of course, I am most interested in organization that operate in the global south.

Disclaimer: This blogging project is in no way affiliated with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is the personal project of Mary Joyce. Mary is not an employee of and does not speak for the Gates Foundation. Mary is soley responsible for theis blog's content.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 6: Better Tech R & D for NGO's

2006-10-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Today I had a really great talk with Zack Exley, a stratgist at OMP and president and co-founder of the New Organizing Institute. We talked for a good hour, mostly about what Zack sees as a need for better tech R&D for NGO's. There are only a few kids on the block doing this kind of work, chief among them CivicSpace and Democracy in Action. Both are making great efforts on a small budget (they are non-profits themselves). Nevertheless, Zack proposes that a new force is needed to work directly with NGO's as they begin to make their online presence felt. He is convinced that great innovations in online organizing tools can only be made in cooperation with specific organizations in relation to specific campaigns. He also reminded me of the importance of talking to practioners, not only theorists and to always ask for real-world examples of how a technology is working.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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Gates Project 5: Intellectual Nesting Dolls of e-Advocacy

2006-10-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

How do the different parts fit together?

The first body section of our report is an e-advocacy global overview. In order to rise above the level of anecdote ("they're doing this in Indonesia, this in Chile...") I need some kind of intellectual framework in which to fit all the disparate parts of e-advocacy. I see these parts as:

-personal hardware (ie cell phone, laptop, shared computer)
-application of hardware (ie SMS, video-sharing, IMing)
-broad advocacy strategy for which application is used (ie CRM, network-centric, hub)
-narrow tactic for which application is used (ie lobbying, mobilizing, fundraising)

My question is, how do these ideas "nest"? Which is the overarching idea of e-advocacy? I suppose advocacy strategy. But the other parts do not nest neatly inside. Tactics can be used for different strategies (SMS campaign through CRM by a large organization or SMS within a network). Hardware has many applications (especially the all-powerful computer). What's the best way to organize these different elements in my mind and on paper?

PS: Sorry for my gross over-sue of parentheses.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

technorati tags:
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Gates Project 4: Looking for Experts on Global South Telecomms Infrastructure

2006-10-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

I need to learn more about global south telecomms infrastructure, both to analyse current success factors (what's working, what's not) and to be able to advise as to how telecomms will be evolving in the near term. How fast is internet penetration growing in these regions? What hardware is supporting internet and mobile connections? What what might be some big wins for infrastructure investment? These are the questions I need to ask.

Please alert me to telecomms experts that could explain to me the internet and mobile infrastructures of the global south regions:

Caribbean:
Latin America:
Middle East/North Africa:
South East Asia:
South Asia:
Sub-Saharan Africa: Russell Southwood

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

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telecommunications,
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Gates Project 3: What Kind of Environment Does e-Advocacy Require?

2006-10-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

I was just reading an article about how Chinese internet users reacted to the murder of Sun Zhigang, who was murdered by police in a migrant detention center in 2003. Internet users reacted by forwarding the story of the murder to one another through e-mail, posting it on online bulletin boards, and leaving angry messages on popular websites. Eventually the buzz created by this activity alerted legal scholars who began lobbying the Chinese government to end the system of temporary residence permits that had landed Sun in the detention center in the first place.

So I wonder, is e-advocacy just a matter of penetration, of enough people having internet access so that it is an effective means of spreading information on a mass scale? What are other cultural factors? In China, at least, the government so discourages political activity of any kind, especially on the internet, that I wonder what other cultural factors counter-balanced the unfriendly political climate to convince people to act.

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

technorati tags:
gatesfoundation,
china,
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Gates Project 2: Is the future mobile and wireless?

2006-10-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Part of this project is forecasting the future of digital infrastructure in the developing world, because infrastructure will be a limiting factor in any e-advocacy efforts. (ie, if people are connecting and communicating for the purposes of activism, who will they do it?) I've only just begun my research, but it's looking like the future will be mobile and wireless rather than desktop and landline. Do you agree that developing nations will leapfrog the landlined north?

categories: internet activism_, gates project_, the "developing world"_

technorati tags:
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mobile,
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Gates Project 1: Collaborative Research on e-Advocacy

2006-10-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

I was recently hired as a consultant by the NGO Res Publica to help them complete a research project for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the topic of "e-advocacy in the global south". Specifically, the report will look at the possibilities for citizens and civil society organizations to use digital technology (particularly the internet and mobile phones) to assist in activism campaigns in developing nations.

In order to include as many voices as possible in the final report, I will be blogging the research here. Posts will be short, some simply asking a question, some presenting a conclusion and asking for feedback. You can participate by subscribing to the RSS feed and then responding to posts that interest you in the comments section or by sending an e-mail to me at MaryCJoyce@gmail.com.

I am particularly interested in receiving input from e-advocacy practitioners/enthusiasts in the developing world who would otherwise not be included in the information-gathering and consultation process. For this reason I would greatly appreciate it if you the reader would forward/post information about this project to inform people you know who might be interested in contributing to this project.

The goal is to write about the global south in collaboration with people from the global south.

categories: internet activism_

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billgates,