Locals June 24, 2010
I think the invitation below about Community in London just makes it over the boundary from "personal interest"into "Dadamac" - and so justifies being posted here.
One of the things I've re-learned during my visits to Africa is what it feels like to live in a community. (Fantsuam and Ago-Are always remind me of years ago in the UK - when I lived in deep rural Cornwall. There is the familiar mixture of real darkness at night, of cocks crowing at daybreak, goats wandering about the place, and of exchanging greetings with people as we pass in the street.)
London is (sadly) famed for its "lack of community" - for people who don't know their neighbours, who avoid eye contact with strangers, and don't smile or chat to people along their way. Within Dadamac I believe strongly that urban UK and rural Nigeria have things to learn from each other - and that a better future would include the best of both cultures, as I wrote in Pam - we want street lights.
In my experience the Internet is making a real difference in that direction. A few years ago there was little connection between my online life and my local life - in fact most of the people I connected with online were geographically distant, and most people I knew locally were not great Internet users. Increasingly my online life now points me towards people with shared interests who are close enough to meet up with fairly close to home (and of course more of my existing local contacts are also using the Internet now). The Internet is playing an interesting role in helping to re-shape the idea of local community.
Hence, here on Dadamac's Posterous, the invitation below to get more involved in Community Organising in London
Pamela
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 24 June 2010 15:36
Subject: [Locals] Event - Community Organising: what contribution local online? - London - 2 July 2010 - 3-5 p.m. - then E-Democracy pub gathering
To: newswire <newswire@groups.dowire.org>, ukie@groups.dowire.org, locals@forums.e-democracy.org
I've blogged a whole week of UK activities that start next Tuesday:
http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/887
In terms of “what’s new” and exciting since my last UK visit - note
the emerging digital inclusion lessons from our Inclusive Social Media
efforts in lower income, high immigrant neighborhoods:
http://e-democracy.org/inclusion
I hope to build connections so we can leverage our current Ford
Foundation funding with partners in the UK to build on and adapt these
lessons so local e-democracy can become far more inclusive and useful
to everyday people. This blog post on a PewInternet.org survey puts
number to huge divide in "Neighbors Online" that we must close:
http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/858
Please pass this on to others in the UK you think would be interested.
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.org
http://stevenclift.com
P.S. Big thanks to Kevin Harris and Hugh Flouch for organizing the
July 2 event and to the Guardian's Activate conference for the keynote
invitation on July 1 which is getting me over the pond:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/activate
Register at:
http://commorgandlocalonline.eventbrite.com
Community Organising: what contribution local online?
Friday, July 02, 2010 from 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (GMT)
London, United Kingdom
Event Details
What are the policy and practice implications of stimulating local
online activity? What are the winning arguments for policy makers to
support active citizens and community development workers in getting
local sites set up and buzzing? And what would practitioners have to
do to make stuff happen?
This Networked Neighbourhoods roundtable gives us the chance to hear
about the unmatched experience of Steven Clift, who sparked interest
in ‘e-democracy’ back in 1994 and has been busy working on the local
implications ever since. Steven will be sharing his considerable
expertise in community building online.
We will also take the opportunity to share some early findings from
the ongoing London's Digital Neighbourhoods study; and in discussion
we will try to align this material with the community organising and
civic involvement aspects of the Big Society agenda.
The discussion will be chaired by Emer Coleman, London Alliances
Project Director at the GLA.
Short presentations from:
US e-democracy pioneer Steven Clift, founder of e-democracy.org, on a
rare visit to London.
Hugh Flouch / Kevin Harris, Networked Neighbourhoods, reporting on
early findings from the London's Digital Neighbourhoods study.
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
Steven Clift
Ericsson, Minneapolis
Info about Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift
View all messages on this topic at: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/2RCZqhXwnAWqes2XADrCEJ
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