OneWebDay

Originally posted by OneWebDay Sydney Organizer, Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein at http://owdtest.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nsw-parliament-passed-a-motion (log in required)

A motion recognizing OneWebDay drafted by the Hon. Penny Sharpe (MLC) was passed by the Upper House on September 23, 2009. Here’s a link to the motion: http://parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC20090923006.

The full text of the motion is as follows:

1. That this House notes that:

(a) Tuesday 22 September is OneWebDay,

(b) the theme of the 2009 OneWebDay is One Web. For All,

(c) OneWebDay is a global event that will be celebrated in 20 countries and in 50 cities and is a network of organisations, citizens and consumers who are committed to universal and equal access to the Internet,

(d) the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that in 2007-08, 67 per cent of Australian households had home Internet access and 75 per cent of households had access to a computer, and show that in the last 10 years household use of the Internet had quadrupled from 16 per cent to 67 per cent and access to computers has increased by 31 per cent to 75 per cent,

(e) despite growth in Internet usage, there remains a significant digital divide between those who have regular access to a computer and the Internet and those who do not, in particular, indigenous Australians, people living in remote communities with lower education qualifications or incomes, people with a disability and single parent households, and

(f) as the Internet and digital services become more integrated into everyday economic, social and cultural life, those who are unable to access, understand and use this technology safely and with confidence will be excluded from its many benefits.

2. That this House supports:

(a) initiatives that work to close the digital divide, including access to broadband, access to computers, support for public library and community information hubs, free wifi access points in public places, and education and community initiatives that teach people how to use technology, and

(b) moves to open government processes and make public information more accessible.

On September 22, people worldwide participated in the fourth annual celebration of OneWebDay 2009. Through education and activism, a globally distributed network of activists, educators, entrepreneurs, and creatives coordinated their efforts to deliver a simple message: Everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic status or where they live, should have access to fast, affordable Internet service and to the skills and tools they need to empower their communities and improve their lives through 21st century communications.

Read the full article at Yes! Magazine.

Want to help OneWebDay? We’ve teamed up with an organization called The Extraordinaries to give you two easy ways to take action. To take part, you’ll need an iPhone, and The Extraordinaries iPhone app. Get the free app

Once you have the app downloaded, click here from your iPhone to launch our profile: “extra://orgid/19722e8″

In The Extraordinaries app you’ll find two actions you can take.

Action #1) In the lead up to OneWebDay, on Saturday September 22, help us spread the word — right from your iPhone! Ride the bus? Share this video with fellow commuters. Work in an office? Share this video with your co-workers.

Action #2) On OneWebDay — help us collect photos and stories! While attending a OneWebDay event, take photos, share share the stories of those photos, and transmit your GPS location so we can mark you on the world map! The more photos we get, the more we can tell the world what happened on OneWebDay. You can be a part of that.

Ready to start micro-volunteering? Download The Extraordinaries app today: http://download.BeExtra.org Once you have the app downloaded, open it, and launch the OneWebDay profile page!

Originally posted by OneWebDay Sydney Organizer, Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein at http://my.onewebday.org/profiles/blogs/when-radio-meets-the-web (log in required)

When radio turns its back, even if only partially, from the old way of doing things and begins a plunge into the new and the unknown, one cannot help taking notice. That is what ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio has done with the Pool project, a pioneering effort in the bold and new world of active audience engagement, Web 2.0 style.

Pool describes itself as a collaborative space where audiences become co-creators, bringing together media professionals with their audiences in an evolving process of participation, co-creation, and collaboration.

“For me City Nights [an ABC Radio program] became symbolic of the Web 2.0 experience. Quite different to the traditional role of radio feature maker in which the producer makes all the decisions about a program, instead it became a very personal involvement of give and take.”

That is how radio producer, Gretchen Miller, describes the way in which Radio National producers and the Pool team worked to use materials from Pool contributors that have led to new program ideas, attracted new audiences and developed new work flows. To date, the radio programs, My Street and City Nights are two of Pool’s most successful initiatives, illustrating how a collaborative approach to public media produces outcomes markedly different from those that are produced through long- standing broadcasting practices.

Since its inception in 2003, Pool has endeavored to create and sustain an online space which some users described as:

“a groundbreaking experiment in user-generated content.”
“a treasure trove of productivity [where] anyone can post stuff—poems, pictures, videos, audio, animation, music…..”

In addition, indications are that, despite Pool’s growing pains, it has the competency as well as the capacity to:

• Encourage and elicit the active participation of users that are drawn by the core Web 2.0 principles of collaboration and co-creation.
• Provide a high level of staff engagement that is responsive to users’ concerns and challenges in using a technically limited site.
• Help ABC Radio evolve into a medium that is quick to react and is receptive to the rapidly changing new media landscape.
• Partner with leading research and academic institutions in the investigation of complex web issues and challenges.
• Empower communities to engage in civic activities through web-based tools.
• Contribute to the dialogue on digital literacy, community engagement and the evolving role of the media worker, to name a few.

Unlike many of its social media counterparts, Pool enjoys a higher level of engagement by its users — about 25% of all members contribute works compared to 1% that create and produce in most social networks, according to the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design (ACID). A vibrant online community has grown despite the site’s design constraints and limited web development. Users are willing to overlook these limitations because the site has allowed them to experiment under a very supportive environment as evidenced by the high level of responsiveness by Pool staff. For artists, writers and the like, this has broadened their creative reach far more than conventional creative spaces.

Judging from references made about Pool from several quarters, the project has brought prestige to ABC Radio because it is being seen as an early pioneer of Web 2.0 application. But more importantly, it has initiated a new concept of audience engagement where audience and broadcaster come together to “share skills, entertain and surprise each other.” This is cutting-edge audience participatory engagement, a trend that has caught the attention of a few public sector figures in Australia.

But with innovation of course comes the ensuing tension with worker issues. As broadcast media grapples with the evolving role of the media worker, it would do very well to reassure workers that it is not drastic and radical changes that the medium seeks but rather, how workers will remain relevant in the face of a rapidly changing media landscape. Tensions that emerged between innovation and deeply entrenched practices can be substantially reduced if policy-level efforts have built-in measures to protect the worker from obsolescence or redundancy.

Despite Pool being in beta version, it is sufficiently forward-looking in that it has already formed partnerships with organizations that are focused on advancing research and scholarship in this new and evolving field. The Australian Centre for Interaction Design, the ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Faculty of Law and the Australia Council of the Arts are some of the organizations that Pool saw fit to partner to study these challenges.

To be sure, the seeds of innovation have been sown by ABC Radio. Life, too, may have become less gilded for those media workers who still believe in doing things the old way. But the time for hesitation or opposition to this kind of experimentation has passed. ABC Radio will do well if it keeps looking forward, making way for other Pool-type innovations to percolate. If it does, it will indeed make a sound investment in contributing to digital inclusion hence reducing the digital divide.

OneWebDay, September 22, 2009, is upon us!

On our new home page, we have provided lots of ideas for this you can do to join our global network of volunteers in celebrating, educating, and activating communities, online and off, to build a society where the Web works for everyone.

You can take any of these actions, you can take them all. But most importantly, make OneWebDay your own. Organizations and individuals are coming up with great ways to celebrate OneWebDay.

The Center for Democracy and Technology has posted a “A Call to Defense and Celebration of the Online Commonwealth,” and you can sign it.

The Mozilla Foundation, in addition to organizing Mozilla Service Week, and helping to raise awareness and funds for OneWebDay, is hosting a OneWebDay Poster Contest! Professional and hobbyist designers alike should check it out.

In Washington, DC, KG Yoga is providing a free OneWebDay Yoga class on September 22.

What matters most about the Web is the network of people that it empowers. We created OneWebDay to unleash your creativity so that together we can all find ways to bring more people online, give them the knowledge they need to be empowered users, and stand together as a community that celebrates the Web and will work to see it reach its fullest potential as a force for enhancing everyone’s lives.

Please use the comment section below to post your actions and ideas for OneWebDay 2009.

Originally posted by OneWebDay Sydney Organizer, Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein at http://my.onewebday.org/profiles/blogs/social-history-social-media (log in required)

Global or village—for all of Sydney’s worldly and modern day sophistication, it likes to call itself a city of villages. One of these villages is called Glebe, a closed-in suburb where students, professors, and artists rub shoulders with old timers, working class residents and backpackers. This year, Glebe is celebrating its 150 years and recently launched an oral history project aimed at capturing the eclectic character of its neighborhoods. As the coordinator of the project said,

“We’ve been told tales of illegal bookmakers, the six o’clock swill, housing squats, timber yards on Blackwattle Bay, and the Saturday matinee at the Astor.”

But this is no ordinary oral history project. It is an initiative that blends social history with social media. An enterprising web savvy group teamed up with long term residents, obtained support from the city of Sydney to document the suburb’s rich cultural history. Glebebytes is a result of this collective endeavor. In my view, it is an excellent story of digital inclusion because:

A web-savvy group is working with non-web savvy group of retirees and long-time residents.

A creative example of digital storytelling.

I was at the ceremony on August 4th when Glebebytes was officially launched. There was a lot of enthusiasm and energy among those in attendance. Even more important was the pride I heard in everyone’s voice as residents of this community. One of the best comments I heard was about a resident’s introduction to the web. This retiree and active member of the project remarked,

“A few months ago, I did not even know how to send an email.”

Glebebytes is a good example of digital storytelling and collaboration in support of the documentation of local history for all of the world to see. Imagine how a sense of “community,” can potentially ensue when, for example, a Native American in a pueblo in New Mexico, while surfing on the net, happens to see a Glebe resident online describing that aboriginal residents are increasing in her neighborhood, where once they were not accepted. There are other innovative ways of creating a sense of community that can be possible in projects similar to this.

Glebeytes is made possible online through Wireless House and under the bigger umbrella of the Pool Project. Pool is sponsored by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and is described as a collaborative space “where audiences become participants, co-creators and collaborators and ABC’s intent to conduct action research at the intersection of broadcast and participatory media.

The Glebebytes team will be a part of our OneWebDay celebrations in Sydney.

Originally posted by OneWebDay DC Organizer, Chance Williams at http://my.onewebday.org/profiles/blogs/direct-service-in-the-district (log in required)

When I moved to Washington, DC I understood that I was entering a rarefied space where national policy dominates, but I was curious to see how this interacted with the local. I’m not talking about inside versus outside the beltway, but rather how the people who live in the beltway solve the problems that are unique to their own community. I wondered if this space peopled with those who concern themselves with national policy ever concern themselves with community service, if there was any interaction?

As I began work to coordinate the local Washington, DC celebration of OneWebDay for the Media & Democracy Coalition, I found that I had the perfect opportunity to answer my own question. This year’s OneWebDay theme – One Web. For All – was a natural fit for the Coalition because we can bring national broadband policy experts together; however, we also facilitate interaction between local and national organizations. This was an opportunity to connect with local Washington, DC groups that drive digital inclusion efforts in the place where policy is made.

I immediately found two groups that do this work. The first of these, Mi Tierra, promotes the participation of Latino immigrants and their families in the formal financial system. They have found that basic computer skills and Internet access are essential to this work. The second, Byte Back, provides training for under- and unemployed workers so they have the marketable skills necessary to obtain employment in today’s job market. Unsurprisingly, this means hands-on computer training that allows these workers to keep pace with the rest of society.

Both of these organizations are tackling big issues, and both recognize that digital inclusion is imperative to their progress. If not for these groups many of our fellow citizens in Washington, DC would not have access to the technology we all know is imperative to opportunity and progress in the modern world. And sadly, in city where there is a wealth of expertise and brainpower that could be of service, both of these organizations still struggle to recruit volunteers.

During OneWebDay’s service week – September 14-18 – we will encourage Washington residents to seek out these organizations and take advantage of the many volunteer opportunities they provide. As we all continue to work on national media and telecommunications policy, it is vitally important that we continue to engage with our immediate community on these issues.

The Media and Democracy Coalition is a collaboration of over two dozen local and national organizations committed to promoting open and equal access to a democratic media system that serves the public interest. We are coordinating Washington, DC’s OneWebDay celebration.

– Chance Williams, cwilliams (at) media-democracy (dot) net

Originally posted by long-time OneWebDay Organizer, Joly MacFie at http://my.onewebday.org/profiles/blogs/gordon-brown-wiring-a-web-for (log in required)

From TEDGlobal 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown talks about the effect of the web on global politics.

Thanks to Joly for the post. Join the conversation, get organized, and get support for your OneWebDay efforts by joining my.OneWebDay.org!

Originally posted by OneWebDay Sydney Organizer, Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein at http://my.onewebday.org/profiles/blogs/australian-national-broadband (log in required)

For those of us looking for ways to celebrate digital inclusion as this year’s OneWebDay’s theme, Australia seems to be a pretty exciting place to be. Whether you are into Web 2.0 and its workings, in government looking for ways in which social media can help you do your job, or whether you are in the nonprofit community intent on using these new media tools to assist with mission-driven goals, there’s been a flurry of activities in recent months both at the federal, state and local levels related to broadband plans, Web 2.0 or Government 2.0.

At the national level, the Rudd government announced in April 2009, a multi-billion broadband infrastructure plan which aims to reach 90 per cent of Australian households and businesses using optical fiber. Over the course of 8 years, the government intends to spend up to A$43 billion dollars to build a broadband superhighway that will improve internet speeds in Australia by up to 100 times, a goal seen as critical because Australia currently lags behind OECD countries in broadband access. The country is behind Japan, Singapore and South Korea and is in the bottom half of OECD countries. The government’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is spearheading all efforts of the plan. In late July, the government announced the appointment of Mike Quigley, recognized as Australia’s most broadly and internationally experienced telecommunications networks executive as the top boss of the federally funded company, the National Broadband Network. Other top officials for the company are expected to be announced soon.

In other initiatives, the government announced in June the establishment of a Government 2.0 Taskforce (http://gov2.net.au) that will look into how government information can become more accessible, usable, and to look for ways in which it can enable more interfaces with its various publics as well as promote greater collaboration across agencies. The taskforce is chaired by Dr. Nicholas Gruen, the CEO of Lateral Economics and long time policy adviser to federal government ministers. Its other members are prominent government and business leaders across the country and who will participate in completing a report by year’s end. In addition, the taskforce is responsible for managing a $2.45 million fund in support of the development of web 2.0 tools and applications that have the potential to enable greater engagement between the government and community. These grants will be administered in the form of funding for pilots and projects or may come in the form of prizes for innovative applications.

Similarly, politicians are joining the Web 2.0 bandwagon through various policy and issues campaign activities. Senator Kate Lundy, a Parliament member since 1996, was an early pioneer and was one who saw the potential of the internet in the 1990s as a medium that can “break down the normal power relationships in society.” (See Senator Lundy’s “How I Became Interested in ICT on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSPRShRc7BY) On June 22, Senator Lundy’s office organized a Government 2.0 one day event in Canberra with 170 people attending, about 300 people following it on Twitter totaling 2,500 tweets on the day and over 400 more watching it on live videostreaming (http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/06/23/government-2-0-public-sphere-next-steps/). They have just completed a briefing paper which you can access on her blog at http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/05/29/public-sphere-2-open-government-policy-and-practice/. These efforts have been ably supported by Pia Waugh, her IT &T advisor and a keen observer of all things web 2.0. See her blog at http://pipka.org/. Similar events will follow in coming months.

Inspired by Senator Lundy’s efforts, Member of the NSW Legislative Council, Penny Sharpe, will be convening a Government 2.0 event on September 4. She is actively seeking the participation of segments of the NSW population who are new to Web 2.0 and would like to learn more and engage in it. Ms. Sharpe believes that “new technologies are already changing the way individuals connect and interact with the state as well as how we connect and interact with each other.“ She added that “it’s time for us to discuss what that can mean for our governments and our parliaments.” To this end, she is looking for speakers and panelists interested in discussing the ways in which Web 2.0 can potentially transform models of democracy at the state level. She is also actively seeking ideas, suggestions, recommendations and advice on how the event will be organized and soliciting people’s views on some topics she has listed in her blog. You can find out what these topics are on her web site at http://pennysharpe.com/nswsphere. For those interested in attending this free event, you can sign up at http://nswsphere.eventbrite.com/.

At the city level, the City of Sydney convened a conference on June 24, 2009, to look at how the web is transforming government. Dubbed Web 2.0 in Government Conference, the City of Sydney recognized that more and more governments around the world are increasingly engaging their constituents online in the hope of improving policy development and service delivery. The conference was an opportunity for both the public and private sectors to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by Government 2.0 initiatives. The conference put together leaders in Government 2.0 in Australia although the one disappointment about it is that for a topic that seeks broad and open government and one which inherently advocates greater participation and access, the conference limited interested parties or individuals from participation because of its pricey registration fee. The one day event cost A$695.00, an amount I would say, would certainly limit people keen on watching their wallets at this time, at least the ones whose companies would not pay for such an event.

The nonprofit community around Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere are also increasing their engagement of social media tools in pursuit of mission-driven initiatives. They recognized the need for using these tools to engage, advocate, influence as well as improve efficiencies in delivering programs and services to social sector clients. One such company is Energetica (www.energetica.com.au) whose principal and founder, Lisa Harvey is also a member of the Government 2.0 Taskforce. There are also entities such as CollabForge (http://collabforge.com), a company that participated in OneWebDay last year. Its founder, Mark Eliott, is a key member of this year’s OWD in Melbourne. Getup (http://www.getup.org.au), is a grass-roots community organization currently working on campaigns that include climate change, internet censorship, the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and economic fairness. Over at MakeBelieve (http://www.makebelieve.me), Lily McCombs team, which includes Nick Moraitis, Ben Margetts and others, focuses on helping not-for-profits and other socially responsible organizations in doing good through the development and management of campaigns on issues as diverse as marine life to youth leadership. These organizations are a small sample of what is out there in the Australian nonprofit arena based on the 6-7 months of observing the scene so to speak, since I moved to Sydney. I am certain there are many more that escaped my radar and which I will continue to see as I explore this community. Ping me if you know others–both individuals and organizations that I can feature in this blog and whose support we can solicit in the quest to make many more Australians aware of not just OneWebDay but the significance of the internet in their daily lives.

I will continue to monitor these activities and discuss ways in which these can potentially contribute to OWD’s theme of digital inclusion.

Thanks to Vicky for her post.  Join the conversation, get organized, and get support for your OneWebDay efforts by joining my.OneWebDay.org!

Six weeks ago, I became the first full-time Executive Director and organizer of OneWebDay.

Today, we announce our theme for OneWebDay 2009: “One Web.  For All.”  These are challenging times of economic crisis and worldwide conflict.  The leadership of OneWebDay — our Board, our most dedicated volunteers and I — believe that the values of the Web – openness, opportunity, and participation, to name just a few, will play a major role in how our global society solves its problems.  It is clear, however, that access to this crucial resource is far from evenly distributed.  Even in the United Sates, 37% of households do not have a high speed Internet connection. Many also struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change, while others don’t yet understand that their life chances and their children’s futures depend on full participation, online and off.  Across the world, people in poorer nations develop amazing innovations on top of low-bandwidth networks; imagine what they could do to meet their needs and prosper with more capacity to communicate.  Let’s not forget, too, that the worldwide struggle between the right to communicate online and the authority of the state to censor and misinform continues to escalate.

Our founder, Susan Crawford, said that each year, the Web should be better after OneWebDay than it was the day before.  She also understood that OneWebDay was about much more than the routers, protocols, and standards that make the Web work; it’s about the human network the Web has empowered.   This year, let’s do everything we can to get anyone who wants to connect to that human network the resources they need.  After September 22, 2009, the Web will be better for having a broader, more diverse, better-educated human network, and we will all benefit from the new voices joining the network.

As Executive Director, I am not here to tell the OneWebDay community what to do next.  OneWebDay is Your Day.  I have some ideas, and I will strive to make it easier than ever to organize activities and events leading up to September 22.  However, I believe in the power of communities to tell their own stories, to define their own challenges, and to collaborate to address those challenges.

Guided by that belief, I have asked dozens of smart, passionate people to advise me over the past month and a half.  I have shared some of my ideas, and already I have learned so much.  I am so excited to get started with you to make OneWebDay 2009 the biggest, richest, most meaningful celebration of the power of the Web ever.

Based on what I have heard, I want start a conversation with you by asking some questions.

What if, by September 22, we have supported hundreds of groups that work with aging populations, kids in poor school, minorities and immigrants, and other marginalized communities to design Web skills training curricula that they can deliver all across the US and the world on OneWebDay and beyond?

What if every library used OneWebDay to reach out to their communities to provide training and to illustrate that libraries have always been the center of our communities’ informational needs and will be crucial in the 21st century in guiding people through the wilds of the Internet?

What if thousands of people with technical skills discover ways to serve their communities by installing new wireless networks in public housing, teaching a class, or committing to a regular, long-term volunteer relationship with a local non-profit organization?

What if, for one day, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of individuals, businesses, and institutions shared their Wi-Fi networks with their neighbors by taking down their passwords so that anyone nearby could use their excess bandwidth to connect?

What if people all over the world stand up together on September 22 to tell the leaders of their nations that it is time to invest in the future of One Web for All?

What if, after all of this hard work of community service and activism is done, people threw a big celebration for their communities, using multimedia from the Web to showcase the work they have done and the ways their neighbors are using the Web to make a difference?

These are challenging times, but also times of hope, courage, and passionate collaboration.   What could happen if we work together to show the world that we can’t take the Web for granted and that everyone deserves a chance to connect?

I encourage you to join this conversation on our new collaboration hub for volunteer OneWebDay organizers and participating organizations at my.OneWebDay.org.