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The connected Citizen

rknobelspies — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:48:50 +0100

Quote from the Complexity and Social Networks Blog at Harvard, written by Alexander Schellong

The internet made us more powerful as well as making us more transparent. We have access to information anytime, anyplace. We can find, motivate or join like minded people to create something or influence a third party. We also leave our trails on blogs, social networking platforms, newsgroups or buying online. Governments and citizens alike can benefit from this trend.
Hierarchical government structures are the dominant model for public service delivery and meeting public policies. Although desired outcomes are mostly realized, this set-up turns out to have various downsides. Results are a silo like, inward-looking culture, slow decision making, change awareness or knowledge diffusion. While the latter also led to an institutionalized disconnect from citizens it can cause system failures when information and decision making transcends organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. Hurricane Katrina, the Avian Flu, various non-prevented terrorist attacks are such representative cases.
In addition, public administration has become continuously more complex. Economic, social, political and technological developments in the past decades have lead to a growth of the administrative apparatus, its size, power and obligations. Market-based reforms have optimized agency operations and privatized public services through contracting-out (i.e. Public Private Partnerships) or completely conferring them to the private sector. Hence, public managers and policy makers have to work within a sphere of multiple stakeholders and understand interdependent relationships for service provision, regulation and policy making. Knowing whom to hold accountable and a general understanding of this complex system is important for legislators as well as for citizen.
What can governments do?
1. Access
2. Dialogue
3. Transparency
4. Internal change

continue

The FLIRT model of Crowdsourcing / Collective Customer Collaboration

rknobelspies — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:15:37 +0100

Sami Vittamäki , a business graduate from the Helsinki School of Economics is working on his Master Thesis and has just released an interesting overview on the structure and semantics of crowdsourcing models. The "FLIRT" model defines three groups and positions them according their activity and involvement rom the core to an inner and an outer ring. The second scale elaborates on the typical elements found in collective collaborative environments: Facilities, Languange, Incentives, Rules and Tools.

I would say, this approach is very much in line with the post of Bradley Horowitz , VP of product strategy at Yahoo! about the three main groups, that can be found on social networks: Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers

The levels in the pyramid represent phases of value creation. As an example take Yahoo! Groups.

1% of the user population might start a group (or a thread within a group)
10% of the user population might participate actively, and actually author content whether starting a thread or responding to a thread-in-progress
100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups (lurkers)

Complexity and Social Networks Blog

rknobelspies — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:58:47 +0100

Body: Link: http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/netgov/

Citizen Media: The rise and prospects of hyperlocal journalism

rknobelspies — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:41:14 +0100

J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism, just released a study, that gives a comprehensive overview on the emerging forms of participatory journalism:

Table of Contents
Introduction by Jan Schaffer

Chapter 1: The Big Picture
• Chapter Introduction
• About the Study
• Hyperlocal Diversity
• Defining Citizen Media
• Common Characteristics
• Having Impact

Chapter 2: Mapping Citizen Media Models
• Chapter Introduction
• Community Cooperatives
• Trained Citizen Journalist Sites
• Professional Journalist Non-profit Sites
• Professional Journalist For-profit Sites
• Blog Aggregator Sites
• Syndicated Multi-site Models
• Legacy Media Sites
• Solo Enterprise Non-profit Sites
• Solo Enterprise For-profit Sites

Chapter 3: Creating Content
• Chapter Introduction
• To Edit or Not
• Mission Statements
• Getting Back What You Put Out
• Reverse Publishing: From Web to Print

Chapter 4: Building Interest
• Chapter Introduction
• Starting Out
• Offering Feedback
• Expanding Coverage
• Assigning the Job
• Building on Brands

Chapter 5: Making Money
• Chapter Introduction
• Bluffton Today
• Wicked Local
• New West
• Village Soup
• Backfence
• Baristanet
• Voice of San Diego

Chapter 6: Charting Success, Sustainability
• Chapter Introduction
• Community Sites
• New Media Companies
• Old Media Companies
• Wish Lists

Appendix:
Methodology
Who Participated in 31 In-depth Interviews?
Who Participated in the Survey?

http://www.kcnn.org/research/citizen_media_report/

James P. Womack , Daniel T. Jones: Lean Solutions

rknobelspies — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:00:31 +0100

Body: Title: Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together
Author: James P. Womack , Daniel T. Jones
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Free Press (October 4, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN: 0743277783

Amazon: Link

On successful web apps

rknobelspies — Tue, 16 May 2006 23:24:22 +0200

The amazing thing about Flickr is that nobody uses the service to upload pictures. Nobody says to themselves “I need to upload me some pictures”. Instead, they’re satisfying some other need in their lives, like showing off the new kid to relatives. Or showing their friends how their trip to Europe went. Or letting their co-workers in on their conference activity.

All of these things have to do with their life, their relationships, their everyday activities that aren’t centered on the Web, but are made much easier by it. If we look closely, that’s what most successful web apps do: they make our offline lives richer.

Quote by Joshua Porter

The Strength of Internet Ties

rknobelspies — Tue, 16 May 2006 22:09:11 +0200

On a related note to the post before the PEW Internet & American Life Project published a study about the social impact of the internet on adult Americans. The key findings are not too surprising:

The internet helps build social capital.
The internet plays socially beneficial roles in a world moving towards “networked individualism.” Email allows people to get help from their social networks and the web lets them gather information and find support and information as they face important decisions.
The internet supports social networks.
Email is more capable than in-person or phone communication of facilitating regular contact with large networks.
Email is a tool of “glocalization.” It connects distant friends and relatives, yet it also connects those who live nearby.
Email does not seduce people away from in-person and phone contact.
People use the internet to put their social networks into motion when they need help with important issues in their lives.
The internet’s role is important in explaining the greater likelihood of online users getting help as compared to non-users.
Those with many significant ties and access to people with a variety of different occupations are more likely to get help from their networks.
Internet users have somewhat larger social networks than non-users. The median size of an American’s network of core and significant ties is 35. For internet users, the median network size is 37; for non-users it is 30.
About 60 million Americans say the internet has played an important or crucial role in helping them deal with at least one major life decision in the past two years.
The number of Americans relying on the internet for major life decisions has increased by one-third since 2002.
At major moments, some people say the internet helps them connect with other people and experts who help them make choices. Others say that the web helps them get information and compare options as they face decisions.

The complete study can be downloaded here.

Internet fördert soziales Engagement

rknobelspies — Tue, 16 May 2006 22:04:46 +0200

Kinder am Computer werden von Erwachsenen oft mit gemischten Gefühlen betrachtet. Sie befürchten, die soziale Entwicklung oder die Kreativität könne Schaden erleiden. Genau das Gegenteil belegt jetzt eine Studie der Northwestern University in Chicago. Das Ergebnis zeigt, daß gesellschaftliches Engagement, Sozialkompetenz und Wirgefühl - also beste Führungseigenschaften - online trainiert und gefestigt werden können.

Berliner Morgenpost, 11.05.2006

The Del.icio.us Lesson - Personal Value Precedes Network Value

rknobelspies — Tue, 09 May 2006 22:45:54 +0200

When it comes to successful examples of Web 2.0 social networking services many people see Del.icio.us and Flickr as the primary candidates. Their stunning success influenced all sorts of business models for start-ups, that are being built around the idea of generating network effects through social software architecture to create both value for the user and revenues for the providing service. However some business plans might be at risk looking at their role models from a different perspective:

The one major idea behind the Del.icio.us Lesson is that personal value precedes network value. What this means is that if we are to build networks of value, then each person on the network needs to find value for themselves before they can contribute value to the network. In the case of Del.icio.us, people find value saving their personal bookmarks first and foremost. All other usage is secondary.

As people use Del.icio.us more, and in order to gain more personal value, they use tags to be able to find their bookmarks later. Tagging isn’t even the primary function of Del.icio.us. Most of the tagging done on Del.icio.us is done secondarily, and for personal use.

The social value of tags on Del.icio.us is only a happy side-effect. Even though most of the ink spilled about Del.icio.us is about the social value, it’s really not the reason why people use it.

Similar to Google aggregating links that were originally created for taking readers from one document to another, Del.icio.us can aggregate tags in order to find out how people value content. If 1,000 people save and tag the same bookmark, for example, that’s a good sign that they find value in it. But to think that people tag so that this information can be aggregated is to give people a trait of altruism they just don’t possess.

Joshua Porter is a keen observer of design and technology trends associated with the emergence of Web 2.0 and for those interested in these topics his writings are highly recommended.

Thomas Friedman awarded as "Webby Person of the Year"

rknobelspies — Tue, 09 May 2006 22:07:32 +0200

With their Special Achievement Award the Webby jury honors the work and activities of Thomas L. Friedman as author of the book "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century" and as columnist at the New York Times.

For those who are still unfamiliar with his viewpoints I highly recommend the video lecture he was giving at the MIT as an introduction:

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266/