One of my favourite events to be part of over the last few years has been the E-Campaigning Forum – an gathering of online campaigners convened around open space discussions. At the last two annual ECF gatherings we’ve tried to include some discussions of recent research, and, thanks to a great team coming together in 2012 we’re hoping for a full ‘knowledge exchange’ track bringing academics and practitioners together.

The call for papers is below. General registration for the E-Campaigning Forum is likely to open later in the year.

Call for Papers: Digital Campaigning Knowledge Exchange

Charities and campaigning organisations increasingly employ campaigners with digital expertise, with many developing dedicated digital campaigning teams to work on furthering social change goals. The eCampaigning Forum (ECF) has, for the last 10 years, brought together e-campaigning practitioners from across the world for an annual knowledge-sharing event. For more information see www.ecampaigningforum.com

The Digital Campaigning Knowledge Exchange will be a new element of the 2012 eCampaigning Forum (21st-22nd March, Oxford, UK), providing a parallel track of academic workshops alongside the open space discussions of the forum.

There is a wealth of academic and industry research into digital campaigning related topics, but this research rarely crosses over into practice discussions at ECF. Our aim is to foster meaningful links between researchers and practitioners, with a view to bringing relevant, informative research to digital campaigners, and connecting academics and researchers with live datasets and experience to draw upon.

Topics

Based on feedback from participants in 2011 we are inviting researchers with interests in the following areas to propose short papers to present, for discussion in a series of mixed academic and practitioner seminars throughout the event. Based on the papers submitted, three topics will be chosen.

• The role of digital tools and communication in enhancing engagement to a cause
• Demographics of digital mobilisation - Is e-campaigning inclusive? Which different demographics and patterns of technology use should campaigners consider?
• Cross-country perspectives on digital campaigning - Including political and social issue campaigns. How do different national contexts compare?
• Research methods for digital campaigners - How to collect research-ready datasets; how to employ innovative methods – including social network analysis and digital ethnography; how to combine qualitative and quantitative research methods;
• Innovations in mobile and web technology; what do new services and approaches have to offer social change campaigns?
• Approaches to crowd-sourcing and mobilising digital volunteers;
• Data, data mining and ethics in digital campaigning.

We are particularly keen to have contributions that provoke debate or point to future directions for practice in digital campaigning. Specifically, we are keen to hear from academics that can provide practical suggestions for e-campaigners in additional to any theoretical or methodological insights. Poster submissions are also welcome.

The Digital Campaigning Knowledge Exchange will take place in three sessions on the 21st and 22nd March 2012. Each session will consist of 2 – 3 papers, followed by discussion. Knowledge Exchange delegates are invited to particulate fully in the eCampaigning Forum, including the open space sessions. Academic participants without papers are also welcome to apply as delegates to the eCampaigning Forum.

Academics making a presentation in the Knowledge Exchange will be eligible for a reduced fee if required. Accommodation and meals are available on site at an additional cost.

Papers can be submitted for inclusions in a short peer and practitioner-reviewed 2012 eCampaigning Forum proceedings to be produced after the event.

Research connections

E-campaigners also generate a wealth of data from e-mail metrics and campaign response rates, to social network data and supporter profiles. Space will also be dedicated at the 2012 ECF to creating connections between researchers looking for data to draw upon, and practitioners with live datasets. Discussions will explore how practice data can be made available for research, and how practitioners can draw upon research data and findings more effectively.

Call for Papers

Abstracts of between approximately 200 and 300 words should be submitted to academic@ecampaigningforum.com by the 16th September 2011. Accepted presentations will be notified during October.

Programme Committee

• Anastasia Kavada, Senior Lecturer, Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster
• Janelle Ward, Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Duane Raymond, Founder and Director, FairSay and eCampaigning Forum
• Jess Day, eCampaigning writer and consultant
• Tim Davies, Independent Researcher & Web Science PhD Student, University of Southampton

[Summary: Instead of funding new ‘online’ services, what happens when we fund ‘blended’ services: can we get realistic cost-savings, and enhanced provision - rather than inefficient pseudo-savings and restricted services]

Each face-to-face contact in the delivery of service is expensive. On online contact can be a lot cheaper. Plus, quite a lot of service users are asking to be able to access services online. It might be a support group for carers; careers advice for young people; mentoring and counseling, or any number of other services that I could be talking about. I’ve seen a number of cases where services take note of the above, and quickly decide that what they need is an online service. Perhaps to replace their current provision, or perhaps as a pilot in addition to it. But generally as a distinct service from existing offerings, and more often than not, with plans to build some new platform for delivering their online service – with a very linear process of consult->build->use.

But, as some of the presentations and discussions at today’s imh2011 (internet & mental health) workshop suggested, that doesn’t really make much sense.

Firstly, evidence was presented from trials of online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Broadly – it was only with a blend of online self-service CBT, and continued direct meetings with practitioners – that positive outcomes, equivalent to those from existing face-to-face services were maintained. Comparing the £50 per-contact cost of a face-to-face session, with the £5 cost of an online intervention, and supposing online offers a £45 saving* only makes sense if the two lead to equivalent outcomes. If what’s really needed is £25 worth of practitioner time, and £5 worth of online provision, including online in the mix can still lead to savings, and significant savings: but it’s important to have a realistic sense of what the savings can be.

Secondly, the challenge with delivering online services is widely acknowledged to be not so much to do with having the right tools, as with having skills and organisational culture to be able to work in new digital ways. So spending all the budget on building an online platform (and expecting that a £5k, £10k or £20k budget is going to deliver a platform to rival existing off-the-shelf offerings that have had £millions invested in them) doesn’t seem the most worthwhile investment. Investing time instead in exploring different ways that a service should communicate digitally – iteratively negotiating different platforms to find those that work for service users and staff – makes a lot more sense.

(There was some, in my opinion, unhelpful talk in a few presentations and workshops about ‘digital natives’ and presentation of statistics on particular technology platforms with the largest market penetration (SMS; Mobiles; Social Networks), with the implicit or explicit suggestion that, as these were the widest used platforms, these were the ones which services should be adopting as digital service-delivery channels. It’s far too easy to gloss over the subtleties of how different communication tools work in practice: and to miss the dynamics that mean how a tool works will change as different network effects kick in. Even if the majority of service users say they want access to services via mobile phone for example, it’s only when you pilot and take an ethnographic or grounded approach to researching how your service works over SMS or smart-phone channels that both you and service users can come to understand whether such a service really makes sense and will have enough uptake to justify more investment. And even then, chances are that changes in the market (e.g. when low-cost data plans on mobile become available to young people), the structure of the network (e.g. when parents started joining Facebook), or innovations (e.g. when the next platform comes along…) mean that you’ll need to take your service to new spaces within the next few years at most. The notion of ‘digital natives’ is particularly unhelpful when trying to understand how young people and adults with complex needs and different life-experiences use, adopts and appropriate technology. Finding low-cost experiments that can help staff teams and service users explore different potential communication tools (why not try holding a planning meeting via skype? take notes on an etherpad? or even try a field-trip to a virtual world or other online community?) and then reflect on their various merits may prove much more valuable than many meetings spent discussing statistics on popular platforms or drawing up specifications to build new platforms).

Thirdly, the culture change needed to engage effectively with digital service provision – a culture change involving being more agile in moving from platform-to-platform – needs to apply to ‘offline’ services as well. If you’re running an online support group, and it becomes apparent that members would find a face-to-face meeting useful too, can you easily find meeting space and resources to help that happen? Rather than booking rooms and times for regular sessions, and then worrying about making sure there are always people there: are there some groups who would prefer online engagement, with the option to organise face-to-face meetings on-demand – perhaps even choosing the coffee shop over the community centre as the meeting place. If the available budget is more transparent to service users, how can they negotiate the balance of how much of it gets spent on digital services, and how much is spent on enabling other provision? Some ‘blended services’ (blending online and offline) might be predominantly face-to-face, enhanced by a bit of online interaction (as simple as using Doodle.com to arrange meeting times, or Facebook to remind people about sessions); some ‘blended services’ might be predominantly digital enhanced by the occasional face-to-face meet up or service. Some blended services could turn out to have no face-to-face at all, but retaining it as an option.

Of course there are big challenges transforming services to work in these ways – but if the alternative is either seeing more services set up ‘online-only’ side-projects based on false cost-saving or demand assumptions, or seeing services fail to take advantage of opportunities to enhance practice, and find reasonable efficiencies through delivering some of what they do in digital ways – then the challenge is, I think, worth engaging with.

So, this post rather unexpectedly seems to have got me to three draft principles of blended provision:

• Identify realistic cost-savings from going digital if you budget for a mix of online and face-to-face
• Invest in skills, understanding and iterative development rather than platforms
• Allow services to be agile in how the mix digital and face-to-face provision; engage service users in setting the balance.

What do you reckon?

(*Figures are illustrative only.)

[Summary: Reflecting on reflecting.]

I’ve been blogging far less that I’d like to here over recent months. I’ve been thinking about why that is:

Firstly, the focus of my interests and work since I started writing here regularly have been on quite a journey. I started out with a focus writing on participation and youth engagement; I’ve written a lot on digital media and youth engagement; on fair trade and social issue campaigning; on social reporting and digital dimensions of local democracy; and over the last 18-months on open government data. Right now I’m spending most of my working time exploring open data and linked data in the world of international development, although I’m still involved in projects on all the other themes above. For me, there are connections between all these different issues – reasons I’m spending time exploring them – yet, to most people, I’m sure they don’t really make up a coherent set. So I’ve been self-editing before starting to write posts – worrying that they won’t be of relevance to people still signed up to get e-mail alerts whenever I post anything here.

Secondly, things have been busy. Really busy. Time spent writing reflective blog posts can feel like a luxury. It used to be something I could see as part of a mornings work, but a lot of the project I’ve been working on recently have been based on a set number of days, rather than on tasks, which changes the decision about spending an hour in the morning or afternoon on reflective writing.

Thirdly, I have been writing, just elsewhere and project-specific. I’ve been blogging for the Making a Difference with Data Blog, and on my Open Data Impacts blog. I’ve been trying to contribute to the Youth Work Online shared blog regularly, and I’ve been working on a number of papers that may become blog posts at some point in the future. But for some reason I’ve not been blogging here.

Fourth, I’ve been tweeting. Twitter provides a great space to capture and share insights and ideas day-to-day – and I’ve certainly been benefiting from the ideas, links and resources others share. But it does lack the sort of reflective canvas that blogging can provide, and tweets exist in a stream of context – whereas a blog post can capture and archive more complete thoughts, albeit often provisional ones.

Fifth, I’m aware that when I post something here, Feedburner kicks in and e-mails it to around 100 people who subscribe to this blog by e-mail, and a number of other people get alerts about posts via Twitter or through RSS readers. That can make posting something a little daunting, both for reflective posts like this and for quick announcements of things – as it’s never my intention to clog up your inboxes (particularly as I know my posts get a bit verbose and ponderous on times…).

Sixth, I’ve been frustrated with the design of this blog. I’ve tried a number of routes to a better design – but not found anything that works for me. I’ve been a bit ashamed of how the blog itself looks.

Ok. I think I understand a bit more of why I’ve not been blogging here so much. I’m hoping that taking the time to write down those reasons, and reflecting on them, will help me to reclaim blogging as essential reflective practice.

Rather than having too much on to find time to blog, there’s too much going on not to. In the past I’ve found blogging to be an essential part of making sense of what I’m working on – and I’m in need of that sense-making on a few projects right now. Rather than worrying that the different topics I’m exploring make for a disjointed feed of posts, personal blogging provides a space to reflect on those different threads, to explore them as distinct interests, and to explore where they come together. For all the things that don’t fit into any of the other spaces I’m writing in, or that I want to archive as part of my thinking, this blog can provide a space to put things. Readers always have the option to unsubscribe. The design: well, I’ll just have to put up with it.

So:

• I’m going to try and return to keeping this blog as a space for reflective practice. There will still be announcements of things, and content that I want to share somewhere, but I make no promises as to the relevance of things posted here to topics that have gone before.
• If you subscribe by RSS or e-mail, I won’t be offended if you don’t want to anymore. I know there are a lot of people interested in participation and youth-work on the e-mail subscribers list who might find reflections on the intricacies of linked data somewhat outside their area of interest, and vice-versa.
• I’d off to spend some time reflective writing on topics other than reflection…

I’m just coming to the end of the formal Youth Work Online Month of Action where I’ve been working to explore ways of taking forward action to promote digital skills, literacy and practice amongst professionals and volunteers working with young people. Lots to blog about it in the coming weeks, but for now I just wanted to let you know about the most important bit of the month, which, due to somewhat slack organisation on my part, is in fact taking place on the 21st May rather than this weekend: Connected Generation 2011 – the annual free unconference of the Youth Work Online network – open to anyone working with young people wanting to explore digital dimensions of their work.

Booking is now open – and more details are below…

The annual event for anyone exploring digital dimensions of work with young people.

The Connected Generation unConference is back for 2011 on 21st May at The Hub Kings Cross, London.

This one-day free open space event brings together practitioners from youth work, participation and voluntary youth projects with digital media developers and experts to share ideas and practice, to explore what the digital world means for young people’s lives, and for services seeking to support young people as they navigate growing up in a connected world.

The agenda for the event is set on the day, and built around the ideas, experiences and questions that participants bring. Topics at past events have included: understanding young people’s digital media use; creating an online presence for your youth project; digital literacy; keeping young people safe online; creating policies and guidance for practitioners; social media tips and tricks; identifying the right tools for the job; social media for youth participation and local democracy; building websites with young people; virtual volunteering; mobile technology for youth work; and much more.

This years event is running in partnership with social innovation specialists Hub Kings Cross and is hosted at the inspiring Hub venue in central london (2 minutes walk from Kings Cross Tube and Railway station), and offers new opportunities to connect digital youth work themes with ideas of social enterprise and innovation.

Register now for your place!

Comments from participants at Connected Generation 2010:

• “Great event, good organic feel to it, how conferences should be!”
• “A brilliant opportunity to find out about what other professionals and young people are doing with social media.”
• “A real get together of great knowledge from great people!”
• “Inspiring”

New to open space events?

An unConference is created by the participants – and it works best when everyone comes prepared to offer a session. Your session could be a short presentation of a project you have recently worked on using digital media for youth engagement; or it could be a topic for discussion; or an issue you want to get the insights of others on.

When you register you have the opportunity to suggest a session you may offer; and on the day Tim Davies will facilitate an agenda setting session where we gather together ideas for sessions. We will then break out into spaces around the Hub Kings Cross

If you’re never been to an unConference before and are wondering what to expect – here is a rough outline of what the day might look like:

• 10.00am – Arrive, coffee and introductions
• 10.30am – Suggesting Sessions – participants will be invited to announce and introduce sessions they would like to run during the conference. These will be assigned to a time-slot and break-out room. There will be around 6 break out spaces, allowing 30 different sessions to take place during the day.
• 11.00am – Parallel Session 1 – some of the sessions just announced will take place and you can choose which to take part in.
• 11.45 – Parallel Sessions 2 – more sessions taking place
• 12.30 – Lunch – Pizza & salad
• 13.15 – Parallel Sessions 3 – more sessions taking place
• 14.00 – Parallel Sessions 4 – more sessions taking place
• 14.45 – Break and review – A change to check if any new ideas for sessions have arisen throughout the day so far, and to plan in a few extras
• 15.00 – Parallel Sessions 5 – a last round of sessions
• 15.45 – Plenary – come back together to share learning from the day and present findings to our invited panelists.
• 16.45 – Close

You will get to take part in at least five sessions on key topics in youth engagement and new technology. You are free to move between Open Space sessions – using ‘The Law of Two Feet’:

• If you are not contributing to, or taking anything away from a session, you may find there is another discussion you can move to;
• If you find a topic you want to discuss is not being covered, you have to opportunity to suggest a new session to explore it – and the facilitators will do their best to make your new session idea take place.

We usually end the day at a local coffee shop or pub for those who can stay in London a bit longer. Coming to London the night before? Post in the Youth Work Online forum to find other people to meet up with?

Logistics

Location

The event is talking place at Hub Kings Cross – easily accessible from Kings Cross and St Pancras mainline and underground stations, and on major bus routes. Full directions are available here. Check thetransport for London website in advance for notice of any tube closures on the day of the event.

Lunch

Lunch is provided and will include meat and vegetarian options. If you have any other special dietary requirement please let us know. If you can, do bring a dessert to share – pack of scrummy biscuits or cake(s).

WiFi

There is WiFi available through the venue. Details will be available on the day.

Twitter Hashtag & Online Network

We’re using #cgen11 as the Twitter hashtag for the event.

Notes, photos and video from the event can be posted at: http://www.youthworkonline.org.uk

Questions & Contact Details

Before the event you can contact us via tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk or info@katiebacon.co.uk

Sponsors

This event is taking place as part of the Youth Work Online Month of Action supported by a Nominet Trust UnLtd Better Net Award.

The event is taking place in partnership with Hub Kings Cross.

The event has been sponsored by:

Online Youth Outreach

Practical Participation

More Open

 

 

(Image Credit – Webtreat ICONS Etc)