All posts in the topic Want to restart this forum for Knowle West? (Short link)
Summary
- There are 4 posts — by 2 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Andy Barfoot at Nov 27 18:35 UTC
Now that two other Bristol neighborhoods have ramped up neighbourhood forums that have ongoing life to them, I thought we'd check back in if there is interest in re-opening this forum: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/kw-forum It would need a new forum manager and someone interested in helping recruit at least 50 additional participants. Your base is a healthy 88. The forum would also work best if connected like in Greater Bedminister and Brislington to the neighborhood partnerships and other community groups/online efforts. To get a sense of how the forum model is working in another part of Bristol see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/bemmy-forum http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/bristol-bris Key to our relative success is the default to e-mail participation with the ability to turn that off. We have now also added a new feature that allows you to share photos and display YouTube videos about your neighbourhood topics. The daily topic digest option has also been improved. More: http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/171 Sincerely, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org
Don't assume that all communities are the same. Whilst I am very much for inclusion using digital technology, there are still barriers to people taking up that technology. Until we find out why people don't use the technology then we are wasting our time trying to manage something that will never work. I am interested in what the government has to say about what they call "the final third" of those who are either not connected to the internet or do not feel the need to engage with the online community and technology is therefore a part of the barrier to inclusion. Please look at the e-Inclusion website. Taking full advantage of opportunities offered by new technologies to overcome social and economic disadvantages and exclusion. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/bepartofit/index_en.htm "e-Inclusion: Be Part of It!" is our campaign to enable people to fully participate in the information society, regardless of individual or social disadvantages. The campaign is part of the European e-Inclusion Initiative, which seeks to build on all existing e-Inclusion activities and identify synergies between them and improvements in overall e-Inclusion impact. You can be part of this campaign by submitting your events, projects, initiatives and experiences.
Andy Barfoot wrote:
> Don't assume that all communities are the same.
Agreed. It is just as important to not to accept that the people in lower
income communities will not make use of online public spaces IF they are
designed to be relevant to their lives.
>
> Whilst I am very much for inclusion using digital technology, there are still
barriers to people taking up that technology.
>
In the Cedar Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis where 50% of the population
is low income and over half the population is made up of recent immigrant
populations (Somali, Oromo in particular), we have a grant to deploy aggressive
on the ground outreach.
I've blogged about it today with text, video, and pictures:
http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/172
It is clear from our experience that to breakthrough in places where the
digital divide and the participatory divides are the greatest, you have to work
very closely with community organisations on the ground and be willing to
recruit one person at a time. Feel free to watch as we open that and another
forum in a St. Paul low income/high immigrant community.
KW-Forum recruited 80+ participants in round one - a great start. If members of
that community want to give it a go again, my recommendation is:
1. Recruit 50 additional participants at various community events
2. Identify a Forum Manager (or mix of volunteers) to bring life to the forum
with a fresh round of participant introductions - this makes the space real to
people. This role is much more a facilitator role than a technical role.
3. Seed the forum - all you really need to keep a sense of "life" in our simple
forum format is someone who pro-actively posts one interesting bit of news or
information a week. Whether it be passing on an event announcement, a clip from
a local news story about something in the neighborhood, or passing on some
government report, odds are 1 of 4 announcements will spark some discussion. It
also keeps the ability to reach people across the community easily in the minds
eye.
4. Encourage community groups to share their announcements directly - While
most groups have websites, they get very little traffic. Convince them in
addition to posting on their own site to simply e-mail it to
<email obscured> as well.
While I agree it doesn't make sense to abstractly push technology on people,
our 15 years of experience says that if you do the four things above you'll
generate enough value to justify the effort required. (Step one and two are the
main humps you have to get over that are most difficult, but if the Knowle West
community would like to make that happen, we'd be glad to help.)
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
Personally I don't think this will work unless you engage with people
face-to-face first and try a relaunch that way.
Someone to demonstrate how it all works and discuss how we could use it
(face-to-face).
I've been working in IT for almost 20 years and I find it quite unfriendly at
times.
Things like trying to login. It's not always clear if you are logged in.
Anyhow, good luck.