Robert Paterson's Weblog

The British PM asks Facebook's MZ to help engage public in how to cut best!

via youtube.com

However this works this is a great start!

Back to my point on how to do this - Leadership is key - so here we see the PM himself making a symbolic point that the British Government is going to use social media to help engage with the public.

Even if this had been a department head, it would not have been enough - but now with the PM the door is open.

So PEI why not get on board too - VAC is there and can help you

 

Engagement has not been the forte of any PEI government - but a much better job is possible. Cynthia Dunsford has been a key player out there and can help too.

 

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

How to break through the culture barriers in Social Media - Veterans Affairs creates a Wedge

I think it is a given that Culture is the main barrier for most large organizations as they look at how to use Social media. As my colleague Joe reminds us there is real hesitancy in the mainstream. No large bureaucracy can be so bound by the fear of losing control than government. So it is interesting  - to me anyway – to discover a Canadian Federal Government Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, that has got more than a toe in the water. They are well engaged in an area where it is relatively “safe” to find out how to do this. I think that their experience here will give them the right and the know how to expand this into their operational area and to give others in Government the experience-based confidence to follow.

When the public think of Veterans Affairs, many of us think of Battlefields and Memorials. I was one of many thousands who returned to Vimy Ridge for the 90th anniversary in 2007.

Like many who visited, I blogged about my experience and posted a lot of information. Of course in these days I was not alone. Today thousands of us post material. Many people are exceptionally knowledgeable. There is enormous wisdom and energy embedded in those who visit.

One of the first ahas of Keith Hillier and his team Teresa MacLean and Joey Mokler – was that they could enhance the experience by bringing the Battlefield to the public rather than focus only on bringing the public to the Battlefield.

This recognition that there could be a “safe” way to bring the public in had very early roots in VAC. Today “silverorange” is a global leader in designing social media platforms. They have sites designed for leading entertainers such as Feist and Sloan, have added design to Firefox and Ning, have leading edge sales sites and so on. But few know that silverorange got its start with Veterans Affairs. A long time ago when many who are now old men at silverorange were in their early teens, VAC put out a tender for kids to create a Virtual Memorial for all those that had died in Canada’s conflicts.

This is the entry for my wife’s uncle Bill.

These are the entries that I made on his behalf. So even before “Social Media” was a buzz word, VAC had created a site, using kids, where the public could find out about their loved ones online and where the public could not only look but participate.

The key issue here in terms of culture and barriers, is that this is quite real – the public are really contributing and the service is authentic and valuable – but that the risks are low. Above all that VAC is learning by doing how to get a start.

They are much further along now. When I first started work with VAC about 10 years ago, they had this wonderful archive of film that they had made of interviews with Vets from WWI, WWI and Korea. The question back then was what were they going to do with this.

The answer of course has been YouTube!

Over time this invaluable archive is being made available for all of us. Not just in a static way but in a way that we can all use and share.

So what about today? Canadian Forces have been in action for many years in Afghanistan. What about their story? What about their families?

The answer is of course Facebook! There are over 200,000 members right now. Much of this is very personal and touching.

Here we see a film made by young Canadians about what Vimy meant to people in New Brunswick followed by a piece on the Highway of Heroes – the route taken by our fallen as they return from Afghanistan.

So what is really going on behind the scenes at VAC and how can what they are doing help you? Here are a few “Tips” that I can see now after nearly a decade in this work.

1. Leadership - First of all the work is being lead by a very senior and trusted executive – Keith Hillier ADM. My experience is that skunk works don’t work. At VAC as at KETC and before at NPR – having the most senior executives as the real champions is essential. For there are organizational risks and there is big push back and fear. Having a very senior person lead the charge enables you to extend your reach.

2. Use Projects – Don’t try and change the world in one go. Have a real project that you can use to find our by discovery and trial and error that will not get people fired if things don’t go well. At VAC this began with the Virtual Memorial and then has been extended into putting the film archive online on YouTube and now with asking the public to participate on Facebook. Teresa told me of their fears of trolls on Facebook. Conventional wisdom is that if the community is sound enough, they will control the trolls. But of course you don’t know that for sure. The war in Afghanistan is a tricky topic right now and sure enough some came to the site to talk about this. But the community – who are there to support the troops and their families asked them to go away and they did!

3. New actions lead to new thinking not the other way around - You can plan for ever, you can imagine for ever but it is only when you do that you learn and by learning your mind gets changed. By choosing small projects that could be made “safe” VAC is doing the doing and so all at VAC, not just the members of the team, can experience the new for themselves.

4. Start small - The team behind Keith includesTeresa MacLean and Joey Mokler. The money behind this is tiny. But the support is big. I think this is the safer way ahead. Jesus was born in a manger. Moses was found in the Bullrushes. You keep the organizational risk and the naysayers quiet by not announcing the second coming up front.

5. Partner – The early partnership was with a group of local teen nerds – what a gift to them and what a gift to PEI. You will not have the skills inside when you start. Now VAC wish to extend this to their service delivery for Vets. They do not have the resources for this. So the plan is to Partner – Partner with other agencies that can help them build a robust service delivery platform.

6. Have a clear vision for the future where social media gives you the win – The vision for “Commemoration” (Memorials etc) was to bring the memorial to the Public. The Vision for “Commemoration” – offering meaning for the sacrifice and the lives of our vets was to give this to the public. The new service delivery goal will be to shift the web from being a big pamphlet to being the place where the services of VAC are enacted – where a vet can get what he or she needs. Finally the visions for the social needs of the vets – which in most cases exceed the program needs – is to use the web to help vets get connected to others like them so that they can help each other. So far so good!

I think that VAC have earned the right to go for the service goals now – don’t you?

I think that they offer us a process that any large organization can follow too – don’t you?

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

What is the "right" voice to cover Complex Issues?

At KETC we will soon launch a project on "Immigration" in America. The deep question that we will be asking in a year of hosting an online space and making a 4 hour documentary is "What is the experience like for all people and where should we go?"

A huge challenge for us then is "Voice". What is our position? For the range of opinion is vast, the emotions are high, many see the issue in terms of good versus evil, few look into any of the pragmatic aspects.

It's a minefield!

Jay Rosen has been digging into the traditional perspective taken by the orthodoxy that journalists have to have:

• No opinion of their own
• Showcase issues as having two sides

He has opened a hornets nest!!!

I called him last week for advice and here is what we came to.

First of all we were clear that Immigration is not a simple or even a complicated issue - issues that are knowable and that can be resolved by applying known rules. It's a Complex Issue: Being Complex means that it can only be known via the process of "Emergence" - lots of trial and error leading to patterns not to single solutions.

 

Source: NOOP.NL

On Jay's site I made the point that this felt like a Quantum world where only zones of probability could be determined and where the view of the observer would always affect the observed.

Another reader said that this was "Bullshit" - but while the issue of complexity may not be Quantum it does share the reality that there can be no single right answer.

The other point is that there can never not be bias. We all live in a world of a cultural screen. We all screen in or out what does or does not fit. To believe otherwise is to be naive.

So where pragmatically does that leave us at KETC?

It might be this? (Welcome your views for this is just MY opinion)

• For patterns to emerge we must have a "Plurality" of opinions/storis and voices. With such a Plurality we have the chance of creating "Emergence" or stable patterns of norms. A kind of Wisdom of Crowds
• To do that then our job is to host safely and in a trusted way as many opinions and stories as possible and to encourage a deep but civic debate - as Jay does on his own site
• To do that I think that those if us who are the hosts should also disclose who we are and have a diverse group at KETC doing the hosting - so we too represent a broad view. (Jay discloses here - Jeff Jarvis Discloses here)

Here is how Johnnie Moore puts it:

Johnnie tells us that the answer is simple but difficult. Difficult because the answer demands that we converse in a different way. Yes the simple idea is that we talk to each other differently. The challenge is that to do this we have to give up some hard wired habits.

What we have to give up is using conversation as a duel or a combat where the dominant player wins and all ideas that don't fit are killed as are of course the divergent thinkers. What we need is a conversation that opens up new ideas and that builds community.

Here is how Dave Snowden sees the distinctions:

 
 

One thing is certain - that the Simple and the Complicated worlds are not what we are dealing with here.

So what do you think - how can we best offer up the full complexity of an issue such as Immigration?

The Dropout Economy - part of our future - Are You Ready?

Rather than warehouse their children in factory schools invented to instill obedience in the future mill workers of America, bourgeois rebels will educate their kids in virtual schools tailored to different learning styles. Whereas only 1.5 million children were homeschooled in 2007, we can expect the number to explode in future years as distance education blows past the traditional variety in cost and quality. The cultural battle lines of our time, with red America pitted against blue, will be scrambled as Buddhist vegan militia members and evangelical anarchist squatters trade tips on how to build self-sufficient vertical farms from scrap-heap materials. To avoid the tax man, dozens if not hundreds of strongly encrypted digital currencies and barter schemes will crop up, leaving an underresourced IRS to play whack-a-mole with savvy libertarian "hacktivists."

Work and life will be remixed, as old-style jobs, with long commutes and long hours spent staring at blinking computer screens, vanish thanks to ever increasing productivity levels. New jobs that we can scarcely imagine will take their place, only they'll tend to be home-based, thus restoring life to bedroom suburbs that today are ghost towns from 9 to 5. Private homes will increasingly give way to cohousing communities, in which singles and nuclear families will build makeshift kinship networks in shared kitchens and common areas and on neighborhood-watch duty. Gated communities will grow larger and more elaborate, effectively seceding from their municipalities and pursuing their own visions of the good life. Whether this future sounds like a nightmare or a dream come true, it's coming.

This transformation will be not so much political as antipolitical. The decision to turn away from broken and brittle institutions, like conventional schools and conventional jobs, will represent a turn toward what military theorist John Robb calls "resilient communities," which aspire to self-sufficiency and independence. The left will return to its roots as the champion of mutual aid, cooperative living and what you might call "broadband socialism," in which local governments take on the task of building high-tech infrastructure owned by the entire community. Assuming today's libertarian revival endures, it's easy to imagine the right defending the prerogatives of state and local governments and also of private citizens — including the weird ones. This new individualism on the left and the right will begin in the spirit of cynicism and distrust that we see now, the sense that we as a society are incapable of solving pressing problems. It will evolve into a new confidence that citizens working in common can change their lives and in doing so can change the world around them.

We see this individualism in the rise of "freeganism" and in the small but growing handful of "cage-free families" who've abandoned their suburban idylls for life on the open road. We also see it in the rising number of high school seniors who take a gap year before college. While the higher-education industry continues to agitate for college for all, many young adults are stubbornly resistant, perhaps because they recognize that for a lot of them, college is an overpriced status marker and little else. In the wake of the downturn, household formation has slowed down. More than one-third of workers under 35 live with their parents.

The hope is that these young people will eventually leave the house when the economy perks up, and doubtless many will. Others, however, will choose to root themselves in their neighborhoods and use social media to create relationships that sustain them as they craft alternatives to the rat race. Somewhere in the suburbs there is an unemployed 23-year-old who is plotting a cultural insurrection, one that will resonate with existing demographic, cultural and economic trends so powerfully that it will knock American society off its axis.

Salam is a policy adviser at the nonpartisan think tank e21, a blogger for the National Review and a columnist for Forbes.com

via time.com

As many fuss about the organization of the future - have they thought of this?

On May 6 in Charlottetown, some of us start a nationwide 3 year inquiry into what our work future will be like. When there are so few young - how will work be done? How will our world be? For never in the history of any species will there be so few young. A situation made worse by how badly our society prepares children today.

Watch this space for more in the next few days.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

The Future of Magazines - Happening in 2010

It’s nearly here – the future of magazines – all about the Tablet.

My bet is that 2010 will be the year of both the tablet and of mobile.

The desktop and even the laptop will start to recede in importance.

Any time and any place and hand held will grow.

Any one in media that does not respond will suffer – fatally.

Unlike the music, radio and TV sectors who all hoped this would go away, the magazine industry seems to be going for this here is Sports Illustrated plan

Apple appears poised to introduce a much-anticipated product: the once seemingly-mythical “iSlate” or “iTablet,” its first tablet-style touch-screen computer.

Though the potential of an Apple tablet thrills many fans of the company, it’s also piqued the interest of magazine publishers, who — long before the device’s rumored introduction — foresaw its possibilities for their industry. The announcement in early December of a so-called “iTunes for magazines” digital storefront that would be well-suited to this new device, among others, seemed a bit hasty, given that the device’s development hasn’t even been publicly confirmed by Apple.

The coverage of the “iTunes for magazines” concept, and its connection to new tablet computers under development, has been a little confusing. Here, we’ll sort through some of the highlights, and explore what it might mean for the beleaguered print magazine industry.

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Exploring New Media for Small Bus & NGO's starts next week at Queen Street Commons

Until now small organizations could not have the same tools as large ones – they could not afford to market or to do market research – they could not afford to advertise, use TV or Radio – they could not afford to communicate all over the world – they could not afford the office tools – they could not afford to have office space – they could not afford to find new staff – the list goes on.

But this has all changed. Not only can small and ultra small organizations do all these things for free now or close to free, but they can do a better job than most large established organizations who dare not change their expensive tools for the new ones.

But if you are not a Geek, how will you learn how to use these new 2.0 or Social Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Office Tools, Blogging etc?

The Queen Street Commons, is putting a learning series together to help you do just that.

The Series will begin on January 13th, 2010 and will take place every Wednesday every week for 8 weeks. The price will be $10 a head per session. There will be a limit of 10 Learners. Please book here - Bonus for those that subscribe to 5 sessions or more will be a free 1 month membership to the Commons.

Here are the details:

• Jan 13th at 12.15pm. Introduction to how best to use Social Media and to many Free Office Tools – What is all this about really? In this session we will introduce you to the big ideas behind this shift to community and this shift to easy to use and often free tools.  Our guest will be Gord McNeilly the Co Founder of UFIT. Gord will offer examples of how UFIT use community itself as the main activity of UFIT and show you how they use the tools to support this. Rob Paterson, social media advisor to NPR and to PBS, will be the session leader and will lead you through many of the choices that you will have to use tools that cost very little or nothing. Email. Word processing. Phone. Video Website tools. Etc

• Jan 20th at 12.15pm Marketing and Research Overview – An overview of the use and power of tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging etc to enable you to find out what is going on in your field and to attract communities of support for what you do or stand for. Teresa Wright, political journalist for the Guardian will be our Guest and will talk about her use of Twitter and Facebook.  She, like many journalists is learning how best to use these tools in both her personal and business life. Rob Paterson will be the session leader. His guide to Twitter is here.

• Jan 27th at 12.15pm Setting up your own website – How to use free and simple to use Blogging tools to create your own websites. You no longer have to have a web company set up a great site for you. If you can use email, you too can create and use a site that looks good and is easy to maintain. Patrick Ledwell, well known comedian and “geek” will be our guest and session leader.

• Feb 3rd at 12.15pm Video – How to make your own videos, elementary editing and how to use tools such as YouTube and Vimeo to have your own TV station. Now with simple cameras on your iPhone or such as a Flip camera and free movie editing tools such as iMovie, you can make movies that only an expert could have done before. Many people are finding that video enables them to tell stories about what they do in a compelling way and the web of course makes it easy for people to find and watch what you show. Patrick Ledwell and Rob Paterson will show you many of the simple tools out there that can enable you to use video

• Feb 10 at 12.15pm. Community Tools – Tools such as Ning, that we will also use to support the course are proving very useful in helping groups of people stay connected – what are they and how best can they be used. Rob Paterson will be the session leader. He has been using Ning to coordinate a number of large projects for public TV and Radio and will use this as a template to show you what you might do. We will be using a Ning site to support the course as well. Here you can see how you can create a dedicated world to a project and use all the features of social media inside this world. You can use this for your staff, clients, an interest, a project ….

• Feb 17th at 12.15pm Using a smart  Phone such as an iPhone – The New Computer is your phone. The basics of making the most of your smart phone in the mobile world. Rob Paterson will lead this session

• Feb 24th at 12.15pm Running your own Wireless Network – How to use the main elements of WiFi to network all your gear – basic problem solving as well. Jason White – AKA the TechGuru - will lead the session. Wireless is how it all works now. Jason will help us understand the basics of setting up a good local wireless  network – how to connect everything seamlessly at your office or home
  

• March 3rd at 12.15pm Risk Management – What are some of the things you need to avoid and what will keep you safe in this new hyper-connected world. Like every new world, there is some risk involved fro the new person especially. What are the common risks that we can avoid? Rob Paterson will lead this session

The small size of the “class” – 10 -  is designed to promote interaction. There will be a class leader but after the key points are put on the table, we will all have a chance to talk about what we need to know and to make a contribution to the class as a whole.

via queenstreetcommons.org

When we started the QSC we hoped that it would be more than a co working site. Last year we offered a short series on being a Free Agent. This is our first offering to help people find out how best to use the new media.

All the new tools are well established now and the main barrier for many people is a safe place to learn what it is and how best they can use it. My hope is that we can provide this safe place.

We have 2 seats left to fill so if you would like to learn more please book now - if you know someone who would want to learn more please let them know.

See you next Wednesday!

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

David & Goliath - Making the Very Small Organization Powerful - A Series at the QSC

It is now clear that the many parts of what can be described as Social Media are not merely the fantasies of an elite group of nerds but are a set of excellent tools can help the very small organization - business or NGO or artist etc - to do so much more for less.

An artist of musician can break out more easily - she/he can attract a core of supporters who can act as both an amplifier for their work and also as a sense maker for the scene keeping the artist in context.

A small business can have the marketing and power of a very large one - it can use video online to show what it does, who are the people involved, answer questions - it can use Twitter to follow trends, pick up problems and opportunities - to have the kind of research that a major corporation would die to get. It can use powerful tools to write, present, handle numbers, keep the group in touch that the larger organizations would envy. It can attach it self to a wide range of resources and help.

A small NGO can get its message out, build a powerful support group - it can tell stories that help stimulate change - be more effective for much less money. 

The very small can use these tools to have the power of the very large - for almost no extra cost.

But there is a catch.

Where do you learn this? There are no courses run by the usual institutions.

How also do you get over the fear of the really new?

The place could be the Queen Street Commons and we can get over our fears of the new by helping each other as well as having some experts.

Here is a link to the Queen Street Commons Blog where you can see what kind of place this is.

We will host a series of lunchtime meetings where we will have conversations about how to do many of the things that will enable you to become good at using these tools. Each meeting will have a few people who know a lot but the meeting will also be designed as a conversation. You too will have a lot to offer.

Outside the meeting we will set up a supporting online community where you can try stuff and seek help from the people that you have met face to face.

Our intent is to have not only "teachers" but also people like you who have already put their toe in the water -  fellow explorers who have not got it all solved - people like you who don't have all the answers yet.

With luck you will find an ongoing resource in this group - "go to" experts that can answer a question or solve a problem - confidants - suppliers - new customers - friends.

Some of the topics that we are thinking about might be:

• How to make and use video online
• Leading to how to tell a good story
• How to use Twitter to listen and to influence
• How to use the web - community building - blogging etc
• How to use a wide range of free or close to free tools on the web - from Word Processing to Blogging
• How to create your own "Place" on the web - your TV/radio station - Your Community etc
• Setting up and running networks

We plan to offer these during the lunch hour. The price will be affordable by any individual or small organization.

I have not talked about the details yet because I still have some work to do in staffing and scheduling.

What do you think? Will this help you? Would you like to help.

Backing up this blog?

After the Google problem yesterday, I think I must back up this blog.

I need your advice.

There is a simple Export of the text to my hard drive - 6 years of constant posting - Do you know of a safe and comprehensive process that will capture it all?

I am a Mac user

The Web - Signal to Noise - The Circle of Trust?

When I started blogging in spring 2002, there were about 60,000 of us. 60,000 is a very small town. Charlottetown on PEI has a catchment of about 60k. In effect we all knew everyone.  We all had to behave as we all do on PEI.

Now! - Hundreds of millions of people are using social software. It's a jungle out there. Not only is there a lot of very bad manners but also crime and vandalism. I am finding much of the web more like New York in the 1970's.

Not only is it risky but the amount of noise is blocking the signal. Here is Seth Godin on the matter:

For a decade, the web kept delivering an ever better signal to noise ratio to me. I was able to hear more things, more clearly, in less time. Websites and email and my RSS reader were bringing me signals from everywhere, and processing them (and creating, I hope, new signal) was a joy.

Lately, I’m feeling noise creep.

Lately, the noise seems to be increasing and the signal is fading in comparison. Too much spam, too many posts, too little insight leaking through. I don’t use Twitter, but I know a lot of Twitter users are feeling this. So are folks who go to too many conferences. And don’t get me started on victims of Blackberry cc: disease.

I wish I could tell you the easy answer. I can’t. I just know that the faltering signal is a problem.

My answer is to keep my own community still in the bounds of magic numbers and limit my world to 150.

If you have 1,000 Twitter followers, 3,000 Facebook friends you are going to be not only overwhelmed but exposed to noise and vandals.

"I will lose touch with only 150 people in my world!" you might ask. But 150 to the power of 4 is a lot of people - it's 500 million people. I think that is enough for me.

This is my point that each "Friend" 'Follower" has their own world which gets added like a virus to yours. 1000 people to the power of 4 is a Trillion!!!!!

My bet is that the noise and the risk goes up exponentially with the number of people we allow into our circle. It's like sex and the risk of STD's. So here for fun are the key magic numbers taken to the power of 4 - assuming that each friend of mine has a close circle of 4 that I don't know. Let's see how the reach of this world scales:

• 8 - 4,096
• 15 - 50,000
• 35 - 1,500,000
• 80 - 40,000,000
• 150 - 500,000,000

I confess to be a bit stunned by these numbers. If I have a trusted group of 150 people, I can reach 500 million people.

At first glance I see a few things here.

Just because it is easy to add "friends" and "followers", your risk of noise, vandalism, crime and ennui expands into certainty as your close circle expands. There is only a small risk of missing things with a close group of 15!

Logically Trust must diminish also on a log scale as I expand my circle. So the power of your world is greatest with the smaller groups as well. So if you want to get something done, pay attention to your inner group - don't waste energy with groups larger than the 150 Dunbar number. The most power and the most support live in the 8 - 15 - 35 realms. Small potatoes for those who have thousands of friends and followers.

Imagine the web in 10 years? If you think it is a zoo now..... How we will get though the noise? How will we keep the vandals out of our world? How will we find things that we trust and that are important to us?

So how do I have a healthy life on the web? How do I want to have more support, more influence and less shit? The same way that we have to have a healthy life in the real world. We have to locate ourselves into communities that fit our biology. We have to protect and live in our "Circle of Trust".

Going Home - What is Home and How can Social Software Take us There

I wrote today on Fast Forward about how Social Software is enabling some of us to go "Home" - to live in wonder again while still being able to both make a living and be connected to the world.

One of my teachers in how to live well again is Fred First, who lives in West Virginia. What he is teaching me is to see the world again.

This picture of a Raven is typical - Fred can make the most ordinary appear magical as of of course all things are.

I have just spent a rapt hour looking at a collection of his photos - if you want to be transported to wonder - please have a look at this gallery

This is what a viewer commented:

Fred, I just am reading your book, and what a blessing it is! I live in Bent Mt. with 5 lab dogs, and can visualize and almost touch and smell your descriptive writing of this beautiful land we are so privileged to live on, and with.

Thanks for rekindling my inner most thoughts of how lucky I am to wake up to this countryside, we call "home."