Local 2.0 workshop

I ran a workshop today on 'Local online' for Simon Grice's mashup* event - not exactly designed as I only got the call to facilitate a couple of days beforehand. In fact what was more of a challenge was being slightly unfamiliar with the language and issues that the system builders, content providers and media companies represented around the room are working with on a daily basis.

But I took along my local-social-interaction credentials, flashed a few pictures to stimulate some thinking about communication at local level, and away we went. William Perrin kindly stepped up with some thought-provoking slides about the King's Cross Environment site, and we started to get some buzz.

In terms of getting a neighbourhood information site going, he offered this as a key lesson:

'You've got to find the activists who have the burning need to communicate. It's hard but it's not that hard.'

In discussion it was immediately striking that although they thought they hadn't come to discuss this, people had lots to say about 'community'.

I'm interested in this theme because (as mentioned a couple weeks ago) I see a contrast between two groups looking at the unrealised potential of local online.

There are the systems folk who are waiting for whatever 'local' is to break out at commercially-rewarding levels. Plenty of ambitious investment going on there. Then there are the policymakers, sociologists, thinktankers and practitioners who've been waiting for the apparent potential of neighbourhood online networks to contribute to community cohesion and social capital. They're watching the same door, but they might not both recognise whatever eventually walks through it.

Simon and I busked a workshop exercise to surface the issues. There were about 50 participants and they thought the key issues were these:

• definitions of local
• ownership of systems
• monetisation
• moderation of discussion and content
• marketing
• local trade
• news and broadcast media
• engagement, awareness and audience.

Then it got interesting, because no-one, all afternoon, went to the table designated for discussion of 'moderation' (where issues of trust had also been assigned). And only with some persuasive effort did I manage to get anyone to talk about ownership. Geographical scale, understandably, popped up as an issue in several groups. 'Monetisation' (which as I understand it is not to be confused with the conversion of lilyponds to expensive impressionist artworks), marketing, media, and engagement of users were the best-sellers. Well of course, that's what folk came for.

But at the end of it I found it hard to believe that any of the companies represented, large or small, has a commercial model that will deliver sustainable local online communication with an acceptable framework of ownership, in sufficient density to help compensate for the current inadequacy of communication channels at local level.

I won't mind being proved wrong, but I begin to suspect we will not be able to crank this up to the next level without engaging the public sector (local government and the housing sector).

Comments

[Hugh]

Sorry I couldn't be there. Sounds very interesting for what I've been up to here in Harringay for the last 18 months or so.

[Scott Jones]

It was a very good day - highly enjoyable. Oh, and well done on the facilitating.

Certainly some interesting conversations went on and I agree - no-one seemed to have the real answers for monetisation.

[Rob]

Very interesting, I wish I could have been there. I also wish you'd written this before I submitted by local online pitch to Show Us A Better Way:

http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/2008/10/neighbourhood-r.html

Which is effectively my attempt at engaging the public sector as well.

[Matt Collins]

Nice write-up of what was a very useful session.

You suggest a need for what you call an "acceptable framework of ownership". I'd be interested to hear more about what you mean by that.

(I clearly should have stopped by at that 'ownership' table!)

[Kevin]

Thanks Matt. I was thinking that a local system is more likely to be sustainable if residents have some form of ownership and are not vulnerable to its sudden demise and disappearance. If the system generates income, I'd have thought it would also help if that money did not all disappear out of the area. And it would help if local people as participants have a governance structure which allows them to influence the development and style of the resource.

The thought and experience that people put into these systems has value, and that's usually what leads to continuing use - presumably they go back for the information and communication, not the adverts. It makes sense to me that to the greatest extent practicable, the resource should be 'theirs' and therefore there should be an 'acceptable framework of ownership' which enshrines that.

k