08

Mar

How Not to Be an Asshole in 4 Easy Steps

At base, a socially just world is one in which no one is an asshole to anyone else.

Not being an asshole is also the basis for creating safe space and is the foundation of all activism, social justice, and advocacy work.  It’s also the foundation of being a decent human being.

Still, the fundamental tenets of not-being-an-asshole are unclear to many people. Here they are:

1. Don’t be an asshole.

2. Being an asshole means:

  1. Treating any individual’s physical and emotional wellbeing as less important than your own.
  2. Saying or doing things that disrespect that person by demeaning or insulting them.
  3. Not apologizing when you are called out for demeaning or insulting behavior.
  4. Not changing your problematic behavior when you are made aware of it.

3. Not being an asshole means:

  1. Treating every individual’s physical and emotional wellbeing with the same care as you would your own.
  2. Saying and doing things that affirm their value and show them you care about them.
  3. Apologizing when you are called out for not acting in a caring and kind way.
  4. Changing your behavior so you are kind and caring to all people.

4. This includes not being an asshole to people…

  1. Of other races and ethnicities;
  2. Of other nationalities or immigration statuses;
  3. Of other genders (including cis, trans, bigender, agender…);
  4. Who love differently than you (including queer, gay, lesbian, have lots of sex, are asexual…);
  5. Who have a different religion than you;
  6. Who are poorer than you;
  7. Who has less or different education from you;
  8. Who have a less prestigious or different job than you;
  9. Who are younger or older than you (no ageism…);
  10. Whose bodies are different from yours (no ableism, fat-shaming, transphobia…);
  11. Whose brains work differently than yours (no mental illness shaming, accommodate intellectual disabilities and neurodiversity);
  12. Any other kind of person. Seriously. It’s not that hard.

Thanks for your time and attention!

7 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Slacktivism

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29

Mar

How “Slacktivism” Revealed a New Political Map of America

The data scientists at Facebook – particularly Eytan Bakshy – have produced an excellent set of public analytics on Human Rights Campaign‘s equality avatar initiative, which some have called slacktivism.  Facebook’s full report is here.  Of the many graphics Facebook produced, the one above particularly caught my eye.

It reveals the likelihood that a person in a given US county would change their profile pic to HRC’s red and pink equality symbol.  The darker the shade of red, the more Facebook users in the county were likely to adopt the equality symbol.  Of course, seeing that map made me think of this map:

The map above, created by The Washington Post, shows 2012 voting behavior by county.  Here, the strength of  the red or blue tone of the county indicates the strength of the Republican or Democratic win in that county.

First of all, I love that the Facebook data people, perhaps unconsciously, used the image of the red county to represent strong support for a socially liberal cause instead of strong support for a socially conservative party.

But what I really love is how the map shows that Americans are a lot more tolerant and liberal than electoral maps indicate.  Based on the electoral maps we have all seen so often, we think of the US as having liberal coasts and cities and a conservative “heartland.”  The Facebook map of avatar changes doesn’t show such clear geographic distinctions.  Though the South is a notably paler than the rest of the country, the Southwest, West, Northwest, and Great Lakes region are all pretty rosy.

Let’s take Wyoming as an example.   Continue reading →

10 years ago Short URL 3 Comments

Slacktivism

28

Mar

It’s Not Slacktivism if it Changes Culture

Screen Shot 2013-03-28 at 10.39.33 AM

What’s the effect of changing your profile image?

On Tuesday the LGBT rights group Human Rights Campaign began encouraging supporters to change their Facebook avatars to a pink and red equals sign, their (temporary?) logo.  In true generative fashion they have also adopted remixes of the logo, which they are displaying on their own site (see left) and they are using the increased awareness brought by the campaign, and by the gay marriage cases currently in the Supreme Court, to raise money for their organization.  They’re a savvy bunch.

So the avatar campaign seems to be good for HRC, but what’s the effect on marriage equality? Because changing one’s avatar seems so easy, the term “slacktivism” has popped up again in a range of news stories.

HRC said on their Facebook page, “Make sure you wear red to show your support for marriage equality. And make your Facebook profile red too!”  but they don’t explain their reasoning.  The Supreme Court is unlikely to be affected by changing avatars.  They are already deliberating.  But the real effect of this kind of action is changing culture by changing hearts and minds.

How does that work?  Short answer: network effects.  You are a strong supporter of LGBT rights so your change your Facebook profile pic.  It takes little time, and it makes you feel good, so why not?  The fact that you changed your profile image appears in your activity feed and your friends see it.

Now, probably most of your friends are also pro-LGBT, so you haven’t changed their hearts and minds, but maybe some of them change their avatars too.  Now let’s say one of them comes from a conservative town.  When they change their profile picture all of their hometown friends will also see that change in their activity feed.  And some of them will think, “I never thought much about gay marriage, and I always assumed it was wrong, but Jerry supports it and he seems like a good guy.  Maybe I should reconsider.”

And that’s how culture changes: changing fence-sitters into supporters, supporters into advocates, and shaming die-hard opponents into isolated silence.

By now, everyone has seen the poll above, which shows opposition to gay marriage decreasing and support increasing.  Actions like HRC’s keep those trends moving in the right direction.  It’s hard to measure a change in culture, especially the effect of a particular campaign, but every little bit counts, especially when the goal is so monumental.

One article on this campaign came to the following conclusion:  “it helps spread awareness of issues…. At least on Facebook and Twitter, if not in the real world.”

This is a huge misperception.   Continue reading →

10 years ago Short URL 3 Comments

Slacktivism

10

Nov

Slacktivism is like a First Kiss

You can’t make a baby by kissing.

This metaphor sounds weird, but bear with me. You can’t make a baby by kissing just like you can’t end poverty or elect a president or gain civil rights by joining a Facebook group or tweeting or forwarding an SMS.

But, like those first tentative gestures of affection, Facebook and Twitter and SMS are a place to start that can lead to something grand and life-changing. They are a first point of contact, a place to say “I believe this” “I agree with you” “this should change” and finally “let’s do something about it.”

Big change always starts small, and today that small start often happens digitally. Yes, like kissing, sometimes digital actions go nowhere. Sometimes you don’t even get a second date. But this does not mean there is anything wrong with digital tactics. It just means that change is difficult, the powers that be are arrayed against it, and activists often lack the strategic and material resources to achieve their goal.

To call digital activism slacktivism is to fundamentally misunderstand how change is achieved. It implies an incorrect belief that change just happens, and if you try something and don’t succeed, the tactic is worthless. But change does not just happen. It never has and it never will. Change is a process. And, because that process of change begins in the imperfect present, it needs to start with what is small and possible, with a blog post, with a tweet, with an email.

So let’s be honest about what’s not working, criticize tactics constructively, and get better at making change. But let’s not mistake the beginning for the end. Let’s stop referring to digital activism as slacktivism, but rather as digital tactics that may succeed or fail in a range of ways, but often move us closer to our goal. To quote the great Tracy Chapman:

Don’t you know
They’re talkin’ bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

Or at least that’s how it begins.

images: Flickr/Marlon Hammes & Auzigog

11 years ago Short URL 10 Comments

Slacktivism

15

Jun

Net Freedom Policy: Stuck in Crisis Mode

LifeStraw is a crisis response to lack of clean water, just as US net freedom policy is a crisis response to the un-free internet. Neither offers a longterm solution.

[UPDATED] The image at left shows a woman drinking from a LifeStraw, adevice for filtering unclean water so it is safe to drink. When you see this picture, you should think of the internet.

Why you should think of the internet may not be clear. This woman is drinking from a rural stream and probably lacks internet access. However, LifeStraw is an excellent metaphor for US net freedom policy.

In the case of LifeStraw, the goal is that everyone on the planet has access to clean water. The obstacle is a global shortage of clean water. LifeStraw is a technical crisis response to this global shortage. It allows people living in areas without clean water to filter water for their personal using aningeniouspiece of technology.

Yet is does not scale. It does not solve the problem. The solution to the clean water shortage is not to buy millions of $20 LifeStraws for people in developing countries. The solution is to build clean water infrastructure, to give people access to actual clean water.

US net freedom policy works in a similar way. According to the State Department’s Internet Freedom program, the goalis “a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.” The obstacle is that “numerousgovernments seek to deny the rights” to connection, collaboration, expression, and personal empowerment that the internet enables.

Despite its high ideals, the US government’s response has been of the LifeStraw variety. The internet is unfree but, rather than implementing a policy to free the internet, they are increasing tools and skills to allow individuals to be safer in the unfree internet. From a recent State Department request for statements of (funding) interest:

In past years, U.S. government-funded Internet freedom programs have contributed to the development and deployment of anti-censorship and secure communications technologies in countries where Internet use is heavily filtered and monitored; grantees have conducted digital safety trainings… and NGOs and universities have greatly advanced research and understanding of the nature of threats to Internet freedom around the world.


Circumvention and encryption tools are the LifeStraws of the un-free internet. Digital safety trainings are teaching people how to suck… to use these software tools to filter the unclean and un-free internet.

Unlike LifeStraw, these solutions do scale. You can create software or an online training tool [disclosure: I am working as a consultant on the latter type of project] that can be used by thousands of people globally and at marginal cost.

However, like LifeStraw, the technology does not actually solve the problem. It does not make the internet free. It just makes the unfree internet less harmful. If the un-free internet is a muddy puddle, current net freedom programs are the LifeStraw that makes it safer for some individuals without solving the underlying problem.

Current US net freedom policy is crisis response, not solution creation. Crisis responses are critically important. Every person who has a LifeStraw and uses it properly will undoubtedly have better health outcomes. Every person who learns how to use Tor or has Guardian installed on their mobile phone will be safer from surveillance and persecution. This is important work and it should and must continue.

Yet the State Department should also be funding longterm solutions based on a workable theory of change of how the US government can act to bring about a free(er) global internet. Funding research is a start. Engaging in public and high-level diplomacy is a start. But more ambitious thinking is needed. Much of the infrastructure of the internet is still American, but this is an opportunity that won’t last forever. What can the State Department do to safeguard the internet at the level of international regulation, at the level of the ITU and ICANN? What can the State Department do to prevent American companies from selling surveillance and censorship software to repressive governments? What can the State Department do to help enact legislation that upholds legal rights to user privacy on American social media platforms?

These are but a few suggestions at securing the infrastructure of a free global internet. Because in the end, as with access to clean water, the longterm answer to a free internet is strong public infrastructure, not quick fixes for individuals.

 

11 years ago Short URL 3 Comments

Slacktivism

09

Jun

The Four Freedoms of the Internet

4011845249_b1494dba33[UPDATED] In his 1941 State of the Union address, a year before Pearl Harbor and the entry of the US into World War II, President Roosevelt presented the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and express, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom from fear. They expressed a worldview diametrically opposed to the fascism and tyranny that wasascendantat the time and described a world the US might soon need to fight for.

The US has again decided to join a global fight, this time to protect the internet, and it is seeking models upon which to build its policy. Hillary Clinton has used the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights in this context. In a 2011 speech at the Hague she said:

In two days…we’ll celebrate Human Rights Day, which is the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…. as people increasingly turn to the internet to conduct important aspects of their lives, we have to make sure that human rights are as respected online as offline.

TheUniversal Declaration of Human Rights is a valuable resource for policy, but it is not tremendously actionable. The declaration includes 30 articles, some of which include two or three sub-sections. Which rights are most important in the online space? Which do not apply? Which should be defended as US policy priorities? Which should be considered secondary? These are real and difficult policy questions for the US State Department.

What is needed is a shorter list of critical needs that are specific to the internet. The Four Freedoms provides a good template for this. The State Department is in a way already leaning in this direction. They have an office of Internet Freedom programs, not Internet Rights programs. “Net freedom” is a byword for proponents anddetractorsof the US’s global internet policy.

Below is a list of the characteristics of the internet which are critical to the exercise of citizenship. They are freedoms that the world’s citizens need if they are to use the internet to assert their rights and interests:

  1. Freedom of Access
  2. Freedom of Information and Expression
  3. Freedom of Assembly Collective Action
  4. Freedom from Fear

Freedom of Access

This is the first freedom of the internet, without which none of the other freedoms can be exercised.

Though sometimes access to the internet is explicitly denied to citizens, as in North Korea, throttling bandwidth,inflatingcosts, and creatingclosed national intranetsare more subtle ways to prevent mass access to the global internet and to make that access less useful.

After the 2009 elections, the Iranian government employed throttling to make the Internet slower and less useful for media sharing by apportioning less bandwidth to its ISPs. According to Reporters Without Borders, access to the international internet costs$5 to $7 in Cuba, while the average monthly salary is just $20. Both Cuba and North Korea have also created national intranets, which allow a select few to get online, but not to access the global internet.

Freedom of Information and Expression

Information must be able to flow freely to and from every citizen.

Citizens need accurate information before they can make decisions and take action in their own best interest. In the age of social media, citizens can also gather and share their own information and opinions with their fellow citizens and use the internet to give calls to action. A citizen’s passiveaccess to information is not sufficient. The freedom to produce and broadcast information and opinion, todebate it, and to give calls to action as a result of deliberation, are also critical to a functioning democracy.

Regimes that censor speech – at point of expression, point of search, or point of access – all contravene this right. China’s weibo microblog services prevent members from posting politically sensitive words. When it first entered China, Google was famous for censoring its search results (for example, of Tiananmen Square). Many nations,particularlyin the Persian Gulf, block web pages, which means that even when the correct web address is entered in the browser, the site is not displayed.

Freedom of Collective Action

The offline freedom tocollectively express, promote, and defend common interests must also be recognized online.

In the 1990’s it was presumed that the main function of computers and the internet would be as a source of information. Though the term “information society” was coined in the 1930’s, its popularity spiked in the 1980’s and 90’s(see graph at left). The term “information superhighway” emerged and gained popularity at the same time. As late as 2003, the eminent political scientist Bruce Bimber titled his book on technology in the evolution of political power Information and American Democracy.

Yet we don’t use these terms anymore. Use of the term “information society” peaked in 2000 (see graph above) and fell thereafter. What happened? Social media happened. The internet was longer a place exclusively for information, but also for socializing, relationships, and connections.

There is even evidence that freedom of collective action is more important to citizenship that freedom of information. The mass emergence of digital activism followed closely upon the emergence of social media, not the emergence of personal computers or the internet. According to our Global Digital Activism Data Set, grassroots digital political action existed at a low variablerate through 2005, then increased exponentially from 2006 onwards. In the data wet, which spans1,255 case studies from 144 countries, the information effects of the Internet, which one would expect to emerge in the mid-nineties, are not pronounced. During the mid-to-late 90’s, when public internet access first emerged, there are few digital activism cases. Interestingly, mass growth in digital activism also does notcoincideclosely with the emergence of blogging in the early 2000’s, which is primarily a form of peer information and opinion-sharing. What it does cooincide with is the emergence of social networks: in September of 2006, Facebook became accessible to anyone over 13 with a valid email address.

Contravening freedom of online assembly means preventing people from accessing or freely using social platforms, such as social networks (Tunisia blocked Facebook in 2008, it is currently blocked in China) or other platforms thatfacilitateonline collective action and aggregation of effort, such as e-petition sites, wikis, online message boards and forums, and listservs.

Freedom from Fear

Citizens need to be able to use the internet for political purposes without fear of reprisal.

In his 1941 speech, Roosevelt defined the freedom from fear as a state of the world where “no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor.” Political action online is still liable to result in the physical aggression of the state, not aimed against another nation, but at the state’s own citizens.

Repressive governments not only censor information and expression and block access to social tools, they also watch the online activities of their citizens. Because of surveillance, unwanted online political activity is likely to result in both online and offline reprisals. Online reprisals include DDoS attacks on an activist’s website by state-sponsored (or simply patriotic) hackers. Offline reprisals are much more scary, and can result in short-term detention, longterm imprisonment, intimidation, and torture. (Global Voices Advocacy tracks these abuses.)

A citizens can have access to the full range of online platforms, at low price and high speed, but if she feels that her actions may get her in trouble with the government, fear may prevent her from acting or even speaking in favor of her political interests. Such a situation is inimical to a functioning democracy.

 

image: Norman Rockwell

 

11 years ago Short URL Comments

Slacktivism

29

May

The Data-Driven Democracy

We’ve seen how digital campaigns have helped citizen groups upset national power dynamics from Egypt’s Arab Spring to the USA’s Tea Party and Occupy. But can digital technology affect democracy at a more fundamental level? The following line from a Wired article on A/B testingintrigued me:

Consensus, even democracy, has been replaced by pluralism—resolved by data.

Democracy currently operates most concretely through voting, by which citizens select policies either by choosing the policy directly (as in a referendum or proposition) or through a representative who has taken a stand on a number of policies (as in an election). There is a presumption that no one knows the right answer (on education, defense, health care), so the best way to arrive at the common good is to ask a large segment of the population their opinion.

Big data on public policy issues, if it is made accessible and if software is created to facilitate processing, could present us with real answers to these big questions. We could actually know what education policy is likely to increase graduation rates in poor urban schools. We could know what policies actually decrease teen pregnancy rates. We could know what strategies reduce health care cost while maintaining or increasing wellness.

The role of the citizen in a data-driven democracy would be to identify policy goals. We would not be asked to choose a candidate based on what we think a good education policy is or vote on a referendum based on what we think a good health care policy is. We would indicate our priorities – we want education for all, we want low-cost and effective health care – and then quantitative analysis of the data would identify the most successful policy.

Open data and data literacy are critical to this strategy, since vested interested could easily manipulate data. The goal would be for as many people as possible to be able to analyze data on public policy issues, and the best results would rise to the surface. Citizens would also need to become literate on data-driven conclusions in order to assess the credibility of proposals. The goal would be data pluralism.

Of course, there would still be tremendous contention. Often different groups of citizens have directly opposing priorities – environmentalists and energy companies, social conservatives and gay rights activists – but it would be harder to palm off false policy claims. There would still be a tremendous fight over policy questions, but at least we could arrive at real solutions.

11 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Slacktivism

17

May

Slacktivism at its Best: New Activists Emerging

I’ve argued before that slacktivism is not established activists slacking but new activists emerging. Here’s one more example of that, from a comment on my recent post for the Open Society Foundations:

Thank you for validating my actions on my Facebook page. I am nearly 74 years old & making FB posts, giving funding to some activist organizations & meditation is about all I am able to do at this stage in my life. I had never heard the word “slacktivism” before reading the FB post on my news feed. Thanks for the encouragement to continue. If you have any suggestions to improve my FB page, please let me know. Thanks again!

This is the micro-activism of the internet at its best: allowing someone who would previously be unable to take political action to do so.

Flickr: Josef Stuefer

11 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Slacktivism

08

May

Beyond Slacktivism: A Kony 2012 Post-Mortem

The dust has settled on the Kony 2012 campaign. What have we learned?

Am I still talking about Kony 2012? Yes, and with good reason. On April 20th, the campaign came to a close of sorts with Cover the Night, an effort to“make Kony famous” by plastering “every city, on every block” with “posters, stickers and murals of Kony to pressure governments into hunting down the guerrilla leader.” It was the last action of the original Kony 2012 campaign.

The Invisible Children site does not tell how many young people participated in Cover the Night (though I imagine they know). The Guardian, however, which has given excellent and critical coverage to the campaign, noted that:

The movement’s phenomenal success in mobilising young people online, following last month’s launch of a 29-minute documentary which went viral, flopped in trying to turn that into real world actions…..Paltry turnouts on Friday at locations across north America, Europe and Australia left cities largely unplastered and the movement’s credibility damaged. “What happened to all the fuss about Kony?” said one typical tweet. “Kony is so last month,” said another.

Although the campaign succeeded in increasing awareness of Kony and Western news coverage of Africa, and mobilized millions of youth to care (if briefly) about a humanitarian crisis on the other side of the world, it has so far failed in its own stated goal: the capture of Joseph Kony.

The standard discourse at this point would be to call Kony 2012 “slacktivism”: a clear example of how massive online action (millions of video views and shares) converted into modest offline action (thousands not millions of participants in Cover the Night) and no impact (Kony is still at large), and then using that observation to disprove the value of digital activism in general.

Let’s not have that conversation (again). Instead, let’s look at why the online action did not work. Sandrine Perrot, a long-time specialist on Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army at France’s Sciences Po, has an excellentexplanationon the siteThe Independent, here’s part of it:

In Congo or CAR [Central African Republic], making Kony famous by sharing the video, wearing a bracelet or sticking his poster in Western streets won’t bring any solution to the highly difficult operational terrain, to the weak coordination and raising tensions between the Ugandan, Congolese and Centrafrican militaries deployed since December 2008 (which the so far unfinanced joint UA/UN mission created on March 23rd will first have to smooth), or to the underlying strategic divisions between Washington, USAID, the State department and the defence department.

Kony 2012 has failed not because digital activism is inherently ineffective, but because their own strategy was. As Perrot points out, the reasons that Kony has not been capture are diverse and complex, including factors from difficult topography to the challenges multilateralism. Invisible Children’s theory of change -that mobilizing Western young people to increase Western awareness of the crisis would change that complex dynamic – was inaccurate. The arrest of the video’s creator, Jason Russell, while ranting and publicly naked, and the harsh criticism on the original video’s simplifications and misrepresentations did not help matters.This is how all digital activism failures (and successes)should be evaluated: by looking at the range of causal factors and placing the effect of the digital action in context.

Post-Arab Spring/Indignados/Occupy it is simply ignorant to argue that digital tools have no impact on political realities. They do, but the recipe of success and failure is far from clear. Scholars like Clay Shirky and David Faris argue that political outcomes have always been multi-causal and the introduction of digital tactics into these complex processes make them more complex, not less so.

In the case of Kony 2012 the political and logistical factors described by Perrot overwhelmed the effect of Invisible Children’s online and offline actions. The organizers mismatched context and tactics, a difficult task in any campaign, especially one as international andintractableas the ongoing crimes of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

11 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Slacktivism

07

May

A New Tool to Map the Best Digital Resources for Advocates

From the Arab Spring to Occupy, the events of 2011 highlighted the potential of new technologies for advocacy. But new tools are more likely to facilitate social impact if they’re used by people with the right training and support.

This isn’t happening as much as it could. Why? I think it’s because of a few big challenges facing the field of support for digital advocates. First, there’s a lack of information from the ground about what is actually needed. Second, trainers are too often flown in from thousands of miles away for a few days of workshopping with no incentive to remain in contact with the advocates they trained. Third, remote training resources (like guides) often sit on the web without reaching those who might be able to benefit from them.

Part of why we founded the engine room was to address these challenges. Our first project, the Social Tech Census, aims to map the best resources for integrating digital media into advocacy work in order to inform the work of the communities of practice that we work with: advocates, support organizations and technologists. The Census is an important foundational step for us and (if all goes according to plan) will also be a useful tool for our partners.

But how, exactly, will it be useful for them? We decided to ask, and here’s what we found out. There are four main ways that groups we partner with will be able to act on the information that we’re gathering.

1. New program ideas based on empirical evidence for who needs what and where

Any attempt to compile an exhaustive database of resources will ideally end up spotlighting gaps in what’s out there. We suspect this will be the case with regard to regions (where are all the francophone tech trainings on mapping tools?), issues (say, digital security versus strategy for online video) and types (ad hoc communities built on email lists or formal organizations) of support.

By shedding light on these gaps the Census should make it easier for our partners to better identify and understand demand in order to meet it. Here’s an example: say WITNESS is writing a proposal for a training program in a region that they’ve never worked in before. They could use the Census to identify and include hard data about the relevant training gaps in order to underline the importance of the proposed program.

2. Adapting existing training programs to on-the-ground contexts

The first step in launching any capacity building program (technology-focused or otherwise) is often to identify local stakeholders. You need these networks to engage with the most nuts and bolts aspects of your training effort (for example, identifying the right participants). This process is both time consuming and expensive. The Census aims to allow trainers to identify local actors – and get necessary information from the ground in order to maximize the impact of their projects. New Tactics in Human Rights, for example, could use it to connect on the ground trainers with people who are already there providing support – helping both to maximize their impact.

3. Getting resources for remote learning into the right hands

A lot of our partners have put quite a bit of very laudable effort into creating resources for remote learning so that they can help more people to become effective digital advocates. Take WITNESS’ Video Advocacy Toolkit, Access’ guide to addressing DDoS attacks or the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self Defense project. If they’re going to have as much impact as possible, these resources need to get into the hands of those who need them most. Partners should be able to use the Census to identify outreach partners who clearly understand information needs in target communities.

4. Working together to enhance the current model by which advocates get tech support

Will the the Census minimize the degree to which trainers have to be parachuted into new contexts in the first place? We hope so. The best thing we heard from one of our partners was that they didn’t want to fly across the world to give a training (or send one of their staff). They’d rather use the Census to connect local need to local support.

Do you work with an international organization or network that supports technology use in advocacy? We’d love to get your opinions- take this survey– it only takes 5 minutes.

***
By Susannah Vila, also posted on engine room’s blog as well as by WITNESS, Small World News, Digital Democracy and other engine roompartners
Susannah used to run outreach and training content for Movements.org, where she spent a lot of time developing online resources for digital advocacy and speaking with other support organizations and advocates in the field about their work. She co-founded the engine room to address needs that were made clear through this work and through a series of in-depth interviews that she conducted with advocates in Cairo in the summer of 2011.

Image from infographic on IHub Nairobi (startupafrica.com)

11 years ago Short URL Comments

Slacktivism

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