Tim’s Blog

Chain Reaction is a conference/collaboration/networking event taking place in London from the 17th to the 18th November this year - part of the Prime Ministers Council on Social Action. It's aiming to bring together people with ideas for positive action on social change to 'Connect', 'Collaborate' and 'Commit' to action.

And I was rather encouraged to see that in response to the question 'Who should come' they make explicit that this isn't just for the established great and good of the emerging social innovation conference circuit.

But not only that - they back it up with the fee structure. Take a look at this:

So if you know young people who have been exploring positive ideas for action on social change - whose energy, enthusiasm and insights are much needed by events like this - let them know about it. With the wealth of experience in running projects and taking action being built through the Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Banks, and through many other youth led projects - there are plenty of people out there who the PMs Council on Social Action really need as part of their Chain Reaction…

Thanks to Nick Booth for a pointer to this website where you can see which of the 198 National Indicators that central government sets for Local Authorities your council has chosen to focus on. Local Authorities have each had to choose 35 priority indicators that their performance will be measured against.

As Nick points out, the site isn't anywhere near as user friendly as it could be, but it does let me link to specific indicators. So, take a look at see:

• Is your Council focusing on providing positive activities for young people? (77 are)
• Is tackling child poverty top of the agenda for them? (it is for 45 councils)
• Are they among the 25 councils focusing on high quality PE and sport for young people?
• Or are they one of the 5 councils targeting the emotional and behavioral health of looked after children?
• Is the number of young people from low incomes background progressing to higher education on the agenda? (it is for 9 councils)

There are a number of other indicators that apply to young people - and you can either search on the Local Indicators Site to see which 35 indicators your local authority is focussed on, or you can put put the three digit indicator number (i.e. 001 for #1, 078 for 78 or 112 for #112) at the end of this URL:

http://www.localpriorities.communities.gov.uk/NIResults.aspx?NIRef=NI%20

I'll try and put together a comprehensive list & mash-up of the data if time allows next week

Just a quick pointer to the Interim Report of the Youth Work and Social Networking project I've been working on with Pete Cranston over the last few months.

This turned into a far longer report and piece of work than I'd anticipated - but I hope it sets out some clear foundations for the next phase of research - working on the practical 'How To' of moving from where we now, to a place where an effective youth work perspective and practice in responding to online social networks is in place.

You can read more on the project blog over here…. and I'd really welcome any feedback or reflections through the comments or by e-mail.

I came across Andreas' work at nonformality.org when he added to the reasons why youth workers should be blogging. And now Andreas and the team at the National Youth Agency of Estonia are taking the initative to kick start even more dialogue about how the informal learning sector across Europe can get far more engaged with the web by pulling together a Networking Seminar in Tallin, May 30 - 31, 2008.

From the Seminar flyer:

The context - why?

Non-formal education is an exciting way to learn: full of opportunities to be discovered - but not very well recognised at times. The internet is an exciting place to learn, too: full of different opportunities to be discovered - but also quite lonely and confusing at times. Imagine the power unfolding when the two come together!

This networking seminar wants to offer time and space to people, groups, teams, initiatives, projects, and organisations who bring together non-formal education and the world wide web. There is surely something we can learn from each other! And there might be something we could do together, too…

The timing - why now?

In recent weeks and months, more and more websites have emerged about and around non-formal education and learning. It seems to be the right time for bringing them together for an exchange of experience and some dreams about the future!

The aims - what for?

The networking seminar aims to offer space and time:

• to get acquainted with different web-projects and initiatives about or for (raising awareness on) non-formal education and learning,
• to discuss the role and potential of these projects and initatives for the recognition and valorisation of non-formal education and learning, and
• to explore needs, potentials and strategies for co-operation between such initiatives and projects in the future.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it (it's a little tricky to just slip in a trip to Estonia whilst pledged not to fly in Europe…) but it would be great to see some representation from England there. Perhaps we could host a bit of a pre-discussion to feed into the seminar at BarCampUKYouthOnline which is taking place just before on the 17th May.

I've attached the full flyer to this post below. Deadline for applications is the 26th March 2008.

Right now I'm working on series of strategy options for engaging young people in local democracy activities through Facebook. The two key platforms for engagement that support some level of dilogue appear to be Facebook pages, and Facebook groups. So I though I'd try and get a sense of when you would choose one over the other.

If you were looking to host a discussion between young people and local councillors on Facebook - which would you use?

Below are the notes I've drafted on the topic so far…

Groups or Pages?

Both 'Facebook pages' and 'Facebook groups' offer a way of promoting activities and of hosting a discussion between different Facebook users. Both can have a discussion wall, and discussion forum. Both offer ways of Facebook members affiliating with them, with that affiliation optionally displayed to a members 'friends' (creating a viral marketing effect). They are, however, subtly different:

Groups

You can create a Facebook group for just about anything. They can be used as serious discussion forums, virtual petitions where membership indicates support for a cause, a space for sharing photos and videos or a way of subscribing to get messages from an organisation (amongst other things).

As the creator of a group you gain control over which features of the group are enabled, and whether it is visible to all members of Facebook, or is closed and visible only to invited Facebook members. Facebook groups are never visible to non Facebook users.

Users of Facebook can 'join' your group and then post messages on the 'wall' or in the 'discussion forum' (which allows for threaded discussions). As the group owner you can send a message to all your group members - this will appear in their Facebook inbox. You can also invite group members to events created through the Facebook event system (which allows RSVP guest lists etc.).

Pros

• Facebook users are familiar with groups
• You can send messages to group members
• They are marginally easier to set up and manage than pages

Cons

• Groups are only visible to Facebook members
• Groups cannot have extra applications added to them
• You generally have to visit a group regularly and to use the messaging feature to keep discussions flowing.

Pages

You can create a 'Facebook Page' for any entity such as a club, youth council, youth project etc. Unlike groups which have 'members', and which are only visible to logged in Facebook users, most of a 'Facebook Page' can be visible on the wider internet to those without a Facebook account, and have 'fans'.

You can send updates to fans, but these will only be displayed on the side of a users homepage when they log-in, rather than appearing in their inbox. This means they are likely to get less attention that messages sent to group members.

You can add some 'applications' to pages, similar to the way you can add applications to your Facebook profile. For example, you could add an RSS application to your page that would pull in the headlines from your blog, or from another discussion board, to display on your Facebook page.

Here is an example page created for Practical Participation.

Pros

• Can be visible on the wider internet to non-Facebook members (although only Facebook members can interact with them)
• You can add applications
• Facebook presents you with visitor statistics to let you know how many visitors you pages are getting.

Cons

• 'Updates' sent to those who decide to be a 'fan' of your page are lower key than messages to group 'members'.
• Facebook users are less familiar with pages than they are with groups.
• Visitors still need to be a member of Facebook if they want to join in discussions on your page message board.

When would you choose one over the other?

If you were looking to host a discussion between young people and local councillors on Facebook - which would you use?

There are many factors that could decide between pages and groups. However, in this case my leanings would lead me to choose:

• Pages if I wanted a long-term public record of the dialogue, and wanted to engage young people via Facebook over the longer term
• Groups if I wanted to quickly host a discussion with those already on facebook, but without building a presence on Facebook right now.

What would your choice be?

There are a lot of people working on supporting young people through the internet, or supporting young people to engage with the internet.

Whether it's the web officers who run local and national youth websites, the people encouraging online campaigning and volunteering, the youth team at Direct Gov, the students and academics studying young peoples identity and interaction online, the youth workers working out how to support young people online, the policy makers thinking about sensible response, the developers of services targetted at young people, the consultants and bloggers thinking about what social media means, or indeed young people themselves - there are a lot of people with important perspectives and experience and questions around:

• Online information services for young people
• Supporting young people's online interaction and activity
• Researching young people and the internet/blogging/social networking etc.
• Developing online tools and platforms for young people
• Exploring online technologies in education and participation
• Young people's civic engagement online
• And a whole lot more…

Well, inspired and encouraged by the success of BarCampUKGovWeb, and after lots of conversations with folk, I though we could probably do with a BarCampUKYouthOnline to draw together some of those threads, to bring together some of the people interesting in exploring these threads, and to build some networks and ideas for action. So let's organise it.

Provisionally I've put in 17th May 2008 as the date for the event - but that's about all that is decided so far. If you're interested in attending, getting involved in planning, or just finding out more - drop me an e-mail, edit the Wiki and join the Google Group mailing list. It would be great to have you on board…

Notes:

BarCamps are self-organised dynamic conferences created by the participants. The name is misleading, they've not officially got anything to do with alcohol.

Young People as I'm thinking of the category is broadly 11 - 19 year olds - although that's not a strict boundary on what we can talk about.

Update

I'd originally proposed 3rd May 2008 as the BarCamp date - but on realising this was a bank holiday weekend - am suggesting a switch to the 17th May.

Whilst I'm on the topic of upcoming conferences and events, two days before I'll be exploring how various speakers think we should keep young people safe online, I should be at BarCampUKGovWeb - an altogether different sort of event.

A BarCamp “an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees.” Participants are encouraged to contribute short sessions to the event - and I've just been thinking about the sorts of sessions I could present.

The BarCampUKGovWeb focus is on:

…creating a shared understanding and commitment to the vision for UK government web activity and helping establish the UK government Digital Network to bring together the community of webbies within central government and the wider public sector.

Quite a few projects I worked on over the last year have linked with UK Government web activity in one way or another. It's ranged from trying to provide youth-focussed content for government websites, pulling data out of Local Direct Gov or capturing video interviews with civil servants. And as the focus of most of my work is around young people's participation - I thought I would sketch out four possible mini-sessions linking 'young people, government and web 2.0' for the BarCampUKGov audience. You can see my four ideas pasted in below.

If you've got any other suggestions for topics - or want to suggest developments to any of the below - do get in touch using the comments below.

From an e-mail to the Google Group

Possible sessions

1. Protection and provision
Exploring issues around making sure under 18's are included, not excluded from the online civic space.

A bit theoretical - but with big practical implications.

2. Local names and national services

Using a case study of the Youth Opportunity Fund - a national programme, with a unique name (chosen by young people) in each local authority area - but for which we were trying to run a national publicity campaign working with (the then) DfES and DirectGov. Touches on technical issues linked to Local DirectGov - and organisational issues about policies for where content is hosted.

A very practical case study.

3. Working in partnership with government to consult and promote new policy

A couple of case studies of small scale projects for government (predominantly DfES) delivered by The National Youth Agency consulting with young people, or leading discussions and information-sharing about new policy with the field - incorporating the use of social media. Looking at how the social media element mostly 'just happened' - with logistical and policy issues being resolved along the way… and looking at whether this can be replicated - was the product of right people, right place, right time - or was enabled at the cost of

having a lesser impact.

4. Young people, online identity and the database state
I'm aware of at least one local authority building their own Social Networking website linked to the local Connexions database (holding personal information about young people). What happens when young people's online interaction comes within the ambit of the database state? Could we see social networks being linked to ContactPoint and other child protection databases? What about for over 18s?

Probably a bit of a theoretical discussion starter at the moment (unless I can work something up a little more in time for the BarCamp)

If I get chance to put together a full presentation for the BarCamp then I will, of course, share it here. And I'll aim to at least blog at/after the event on any discussions arising from the sessions I'm in.

With more funding that ever around for video and multi-media projects with young people, is the focus of the funding spot on, or missing a trick?

Media box has £6m of government funding to give to "creative media projects involving film, television radio, online, print and multi-media". Government is talking about these projects as ways of addressing the negative media portrayal of young people, and often we hear about how they equip young people with skills for jobs in the media. However, if we really want to support young people to challenge negative stereotypes in mainstream media, and to participate as citizens in an ever more networked world, we need to do more than to create one-off videos or to train a small group to work in media jobs. We need to focus the core of our funding on building media literacy*.

Media literacy is "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms" (Aufderheide, 1993; Christ & Potter, 1998 in Livingstone, 2004). Sonia Livingstone (in the 2004 journal article Media Literacy and the Challenge of New Information and Communication Technologies) explains "Learning to create content helps one to analyze that produced professionally by others; skills in analysis and evaluation open the doors to new uses of the Internet, expanding access, and so forth". She goes on to say:

"In advancing policy, it would clarify matters to disentangle three arguments: [(a)] the pedagogic argument that people learn best about media through making it; [(b)] the employment argument that those with new media skills are increasingly needed as the information sector expands; and [(c)] the cultural politics argument that citizens have the right to self-representation and cultural participation." (Pg 7. Letters added and not in the original)

It seems that Media Box and other recent projects are strong on (c), and have a focus on (b) but are missing enough of a focus on (a), on how supporting young people to make media can help build their literacy for future access, analysis, evaluation and creation of media. (a) doesn't just happen. Really good learning about the media through making media needs space to be created for reflection as well as action creating media, and it needs to be focussed on process as well as product. I don't doubt that many projects with Media Box funding do have an implicit element of learning about media through making - but making sure all projects have this 'third side of the box' could, I believe, really enhance their long term impact in young peoples representation in the media*.

*I realise there is a piece of this story missing. How does increased media literacy lead to more positive portrayal of young people in the media? Another post to come soon on that question - particularly looking at how social media literacy in a world of user-generated-content is a key element.

Just tidying up the final videos and content from The Youth Summit and came across this.

The hoodie is a much maligned garment. Luckily it has staunch defenders, like NYA Chief Exec Tom Wylie… and a certain group of Monks…

Over the last two years I've worked with YouthBank UK and the YouthBank network of Community Foundation Northern Ireland to develop a Management Information System to support youth led micro-finance. The software I developed ended up very customised around YouthBank, but with the rise of the Youth Opportunity Fund, and other growth in youth led grantmaking there appears to have been a real need for a more general information system supporting such projects.

All this led me to starting work at the start of this year on TheGrantmaker, a flexible web-based Management Information System for youth led grantmaking, based on top of the Drupal Content Management System. Mike Smith, my brother in law, took on role of chief coder, and has developed all the foundations for a top-notch system. However, things have got really busy here with the upcoming launch of Practical Participation - and time and money to develop TheGrantmaker further have dried up for now. So - I thought I'd drop a quick post here in case there was anyone interested in exploring ways to bring development back-to-life.

Right now, what I think is needed, is either some dedicated voluntary effort to turn TheGrantmaker into a high-quality open source product - or a business model that can support at least a couple more months of developer time to turn TheGrantmaker into a cost-effective product for Youth Opportunity Funds and other grantmaking groups.

If you think you might be able to help, drop me a line: tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk.