Interested in Social Journalism, International Development or Patterns of Change? I need your help. April 30, 2012

I am looking for someone - or ("several someones")  - who can help me to document and share online more of the action and learning within Dadamac. If this someone might be you - or someone you know - please read on, and share with others.

Ways to help

You may want to help as a "social journalist" or you may find some other ways you can help Dadamac's work.

What do I mean by social journalist?

Someone to do the kind of thing that David Wilcox does - but with a focus on Dadamac in order to bring far more of what we do into our website at http://www.dadamac.net and/or out through Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Youtube

How would it work?

That depends of what suits you and me together.

We need to discover the best ways for you, personally, to capture and share information. You and I need to communicate easily about what is going on (and/or communicate about  the thinking behind what is happening now and where we hope things will be going in future).

We may communicate face-to-face, or online, or a mixture of the two.

You can post information using whatever medium suits you best - photos, videos, text (tweets/blogs/in-depth reports), diagrams, mind-maps, prezzis, animations - maybe even songs and poems.

What is the "reward"?

We have to find a way of doing this that is of value to each of us. You should feel that the time and effort you put in is well worth the resulting benefits (i.e. the obvious benefit - to yourself and others - of the work you produce and also the benefit that you gain personally through the process of doing it). I should also feel that the time and effort I put into helping you become productive within Dadamac is time well spent.

To begin with this will have to be a Dadamac OK approach - http://www.dadamac.net/about/openknowledge - which is how I do most of my work. I do the work because I value it and I believe it is worth doing - irrespective of any value that others may (or may not) place on it.

Most of my Dadamac work relates to "other kinds of value" (rather than simple financial value). It's about learning-by-doing, developing new skills, creating knowledge, exploring ideas, connecting with people, learning from-and-with them, developing networks of trust, helping to make things happen, setting up systems, enabling communication, reflecting on what we are doing, analysing what seems to be happening (a local and global perspective)  and so on.

I often refer to this non-financial kind of  "Value" as a  "V" with an equals sign "=" through it - a bit like a UK pound, or US dollar, or Euro. I believe it is a kind of value that will be increasingly recognised as the 21st century progresses.

If we find a way of making money together that is fine too - see http://www.dadamac.net/about/company.  I'm not against making money ( I have always had to balance my Dadamac OK activities with my "how I pay the bills" activities) - and I certainly don't want to exploit anyone.

Flexibility and accountability

The way we work together can be very flexible - to fit your other commitments. Even if you only have a couple of hours a month to spare for Dadamac that could be useful - or if you have lots of time but only for a few weeks. All kinds of things are possible. The important things are that:

• We find a way that works well for both of us.
• We agree carefully what we will do - it can be as big or small as you like,
• We will only do one small (low risk) step at a time to start with, so that we can build trust and experience of ways of working together in valuable ways.
• We communicate about how things are going.
  
• We agree an end date at the start of each new stage of collaborating - a date when we will have completed the stage/project/experiment we have agreed - and will consider if we want to continue collaborating and if so what we will do next and how we will do it (our next win-win working agreement).
• We stick to what we have agreed, or if that is not going to be possible we let each other know about the problem as early as it becomes evident.
  

What would we be doing?

Together we'd do the things I'm doing now - but better and more of them. Ideally you'll be much better than I am at most of the things I struggle to do - but even if you're no better than I am at least by working together things will get done more quickly. In return for your time and skills I will help you to make the most of the wisdom, knowledge, networks and systems of Dadamac.

What about a bit more detail?

To get a better idea let's think about what I should be doing today, and how it would be much better with help: It's the end of the month and I need to pull together an overview of what has been happening last month plus a bit of a look forward to the coming month for the Dadamac Digest. Blog posts for the month get pulled in automatically. The rest needs at least bringing together - and ideally presenting in a more attractive way. Check out last month's http://www.dadamac.net/digest/03-2012 and think how it could have been better - if I had some help. I've mentioned some things below:

We don't have to meet F2F - you can be based anywhere

Much of my activity is online so it could be covered by someone who never meets me Face-to-Face. We could simply connect online - especially now that we have Skype for voice (and video if you prefer and if the bandwidth is up to it).

If you are in London

If you are in London then we could do some or all face-to-face. I'm active out and about in Central London, sometimes at events organised by others, sometimes doing my own things.

I know I should take more photos and tweet and write things up - but I tend to be participating (and analysing how what is going on relates to other things in Dadamac UK and beyond). I don't want to be distracted (or distract others) by turning my attention to "capturing the moment" for online sharing - and afterwards I confess that little reporting gets done. I'd love to find someone with overlapping interests who could help me to capture and share more of what is happening.

If you can get easily to SE London Zone 4 from time to time then you could also come along to where I am based to "look over my shoulder" as I'm working, join in with what is going on, and generally get more insights into Dadamac.

Some people think Dadamac is only concerned with things in Nigeria - which we are - but we are also interested in education, development, and change in a much wider context, and my activities in London reflect that. 

Read more about us

If you want to learn more about Dadamac go to the website and dip in - please include the digest while you are there. Imagine how much better everything/something could be with you help - and then let me know.

Follow-up

Email me - pamela.mclean@dadamac.net  Please keep the same title "Interested in Social Journalism, International Development or Patterns of Change? I need your help." so that your email attracts my attention.

Please pass this on to others who might be interested. Thank you.