I discovered this report last night via a google alert, but was too tired to blog it. Today, in an email, Allison Fine is asking for our reactions to a new report she authored and published by The Overbrook Foundation yesterday called "Web 2.0 Assessment of The Overbrook Foundation's Human Rights Grantees." The report and survey instruments (I think got to give some early feedback on those) can be downloaded here.
I haven't yet digested the report, but I was pleased to see that the report wasn't just a series of data findings, but also include some in-depth reporting on attitudes about using the tools. Some of the key themes from focus group interviews:
- Participants felt a “common struggle” in understanding which tools are critically important to their work. “I’m in a perpetual state of anxiety about which tools I’m supposed to be paying attention to.”
- Most of the attendees were at a loss as to where and how to get help for selecting and using new social media tools. “We don’t know who can translate these things for our needs.”
- Participants felt a “common struggle” in understanding which tools are critically important to their work. “I’m in a perpetual state of anxiety about which tools I’m supposed to be paying attention to.”
- Most of the attendees were at a loss as to where and how to get help for selecting and using new social media tools. “We don’t know who can translate these things for our needs.”
- There was almost universal frustration voiced about using outside technology consultants. The organizations felt that it was difficult to identify an appropriate one and felt that they were often left maintaining systems or tools for which they didn’t feel qualified. Smaller organizations said that they could not afford help of any kind, particularly their own staff dedicated to technology.
- Many organizations expressed the real difficulties of using technologies with constituents or in countries where the digital divide is very real and their constituents may be at risk of punishment by local governments for their activism.
- There were a few instances of constituents self-organizing to support the grantee organizations, as reported by the participants, but not many.
- Participants felt a generation gap with the new technology. “I’m always trying to catch up to my younger staff members.”
- All of the groups are using the web for donations; some to much greater success than others. As one participant said, “Money is the ultimate user generated content.”
I'm thinking about the interview that I had with Jon Udell where we talked a lot about the job of educating people about the possibilities of new technology. We also talked about the changes between web1.0 versus web2.0 of personal learning, particularly in the example of following a tag stream. In Web 1.0, people would ask a question, and we would simply cut and paste some urls for people. Now, we follow a tag stream and point people to del.icio.us and how different it is to acquire knowledge from watching a tag stream versus being given a list of urls. So, in some ways - there is a chicken and egg problem. To learn about web2.0 and feel comfortable, you need to experience it. This may not make any sense .. maybe the fog will lift as jet lag dissipates.
The recommendations in the report call for more institutionalized capacity building programs around Web2.0.
My thoughts are still half-way around the world in Cambodia and, in the US, we don't have the added challenge of a slow Internet connection. One of the things that I discovered, is that while there are "fast connections," many times the Internet is painfully slow. And, since it is wireless, if it rains, that seems to get in the way. I could not get my blogging software login page to load and using flickr was impossible. And, while on a faster connection, I was able to upload some videos to YouTube, I couldn't always play them back.
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