During a few months at the beginning of 2008 I was lucky enough to work with Ben Rigby, doing some background research for his MobileVoter book “Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth.”
At the time I truly wished I had more time to work on more chapters! I ended up compiling three documents that follow Ben’s excellent guidelines: one for Blogging and Microblogging, one for Video and Image Sharing. The documents contain some definitions, a section on strategic approaches, a few use cases, a technical overview with key features and mechanisms, a “getting started” section, and a few points on what may come next on this topic. I may change the format and structure of these and re-publish the content in the near future.
Ben’s book is enriched by interviews, examples, real use cases and a lot of insight, both from campaigners and from technical people. The chapters cover Blogging, Social Networking, Video and Photo Sharing, Mobile Phones, Wikis, Maps, Virtual Worlds. The book is available on Amazon.com.
In November 2008, Francia Alfaro and I traveled to Chile to help with the facilitation of the CCLearn workshop, as part of the event LatAmCommons, organized among others by our friends from DerechosDigitales.org.
This workshop was a bit unusual, but the results were great. The discussions in breakout groups had the following topics: Open Access to Information, Educational System and Open Education, Licensing issues around educational materials, Collaborative Production in the context of open education, and Public Policy. We also had a session on Project Mapping and Trend Mapping, and we closed with a “peer assist” session of projects looking for specific feedback. I have more detailed notes of the sessions that I can share if you’re interested. Drop me a line!
* Photo by Claudio Ruiz
During the summer of 2008 I worked with the team that organized Slow Food Nation. This celebration of good, clean and fair food took place at San Francisco’s Civic Center and Fort Mason and at other Bay Area venues. I was in charge of the Agrarian Arts program, supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Part of the work on the program was identifying performance artists who were connecting their practice to the land, the harvest and the traditions of their ancestors around food and agriculture. The main performance was featured as part of the Victory Garden program during labor day weekend, at the Civic Center venue. Our small stage was graced by amazing artists such as David Mas Masumoto and Nikiko Masumoto (spoken word and Taiko drums), the Old Time Trio (bluegrass and old time music), Cascada de Flores (mexican and cuban music and dance), a Tibetan Community group, a group of Hmong music and dance, a Bulgarian Honeybee and Harvest dance, the traditional aztec Danza Xitlalli, a Kulintang Music and Dance group, and the nigerian group RSK arts and drums. We documented the performances and the interaction with the public using video cameras, digital photo cameras, audio recording and blogs.
i4d (Information For Development) magazine is a print publication distributed from India, with a global audience in mind. The magazine aims to provide a platform for opinions, research and practice around the ICT4D sector. The website i4d online compliments the print publication with interactive features and up to date information. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of the editorial and program staff of the magazine, and they do an amazing job by keeping a relevant publishing calendar and a rich rotation of authors, both academics and practitioners.
i4d has published two of my articles in English. The first was entitled “A social movement for freedom of knowledge”, a basic first overview of our research objectives for FLOSS communities in Latin America and the Caribbean. It was included in their October 2004 number. The second one was entitled “Commons in Latin America: Creative, collective and for all”, and it was included in their edition for July 2006, presenting some of our findings in the area of the commons, beyond the research of free software communities.
During the year 2007 I had the opportunity to work with the organization team for the 3rd Global Knowldge Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. GK3 would bring together over 2,000 visionaries, international leaders, practitioners and policy-makers to engage on different conferences and activities around three themes: Emerging People, Emerging Markets, and Emerging Technologies.
As part of GK3. we planned a variety of online interactions and online events will engage a broader audience, leveraging a suite of collaborative technologies to link face-to-face events with expert and grassroots voices from around the globe. The idea behind the interactions website (developed in Drupal) was to amplify the voices of those who would not make it to the conference in person. We tried to take advantage of web video, audio, voice over IP, mailing lists and other media to communicate with a wide audience of practitioners in different continents. We used Skype, podcasts, twitter and youtube to integrate media that people were already using as part of their daily work.
During the event, GK3 online published photographs, videos, interviews, audio files and accounts of the sessions from the conference floor in Malaysia. Some of the materials and archive information can still be found on the site, at GK3onlineinteractions.net
