Summary of the discussions so far

Talking to people both offline and online about Digital Mentors activity, I know that some are finding it hard to keep up with the pace and amount of discussion. I thought it would be useful to put together a summary of some of ideas which are emerging from digitalmentor.org and the Voicebox site. This comes with the caveat that while I’ve tried to keep it balanced, I’ve also added my own analysis into it, which not all will agree with. Please let me know if you feel I’ve misrepresented anything you’ve written.

I’ve also had some really thought-provoking discussions about a possible model which I’ve reflected here, hopefully as a stimulus to discussion.

Apologies for the length of this post – I’ve re-read every single comment on digitalmentor.org (not an easy feat!) and wanted to do it justice. If you would like to download a PDF of this post to print out and read offline, you can find one here.

Digital Mentors: Summary of posts on digitalmentor.org and voice-box.org.uk

1) What is this collaboration trying to achieve through Digital Mentors?

Focused on engaging those who feel marginalised from society, the Digital Mentors project aims to use community and social media as a tool to provide people with a voice and foster a culture of confidence-building. Traditional digital inclusion initiatives have focused on training people to have IT skills (although at their heart is, usually, the desire to create a social impact). While that has an important place, there is growing evidence to show that supporting people to become creators of digital content can lead to individuals having a wider range of interest groups, both face-to-face and online. The growth in confidence and competence gained through creating and publishing content, as opposed to merely being a consumer, often results in people engaging with other individuals, intermediaries, agencies and groups in more confident and collaborative ways across a spectrum of aspects of daily life.

Michael Grimes says, “It’s not just giving people a voice, but also how you own and take responsibility for that voice, and how technology supports that.”

There seems to be consensus that the project and the application of digital media should be led by the issues and needs of the beneficiaries themselves – it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ notion that every project will need to be using every aspect of community and social media. Michael Grimes says: “We should be starting with what people want to achieve and helping them find and use the appropriate tools”.

Although there seems to be a general consensus about the types of technologies we want to engage people in using – community websites, wikis, blogs, social networking, social reporting, community radio, films - Mike Amos-Simpson argues: “All of these technologies are temporary and arguably may be short term trends. I think instead we should be focusing much more on how we help people acquire the skills and motivation to be able to figure out technology for themselves. Arguably you can use those forementioned tools to achieve this, but I think instead we should look to break down the skill sets we think people will need to become comfortable with using any mainstream technology and to be able to constantly adapt as these update.” So how Digital Mentors facilitate this within their communities is crucial.

Clare White makes the point that: “There’s something that is slow to change and that’s the culture change that comes in an open, digital society. In a society where everyone is invited to participate, people still need to know they have the invitation.”

We want to create a culture whether people can make an informed choice about whether to participate and give them the opportunity and the support to engage in digital media.

You could summarise all this as the notion of creating social capital through the project. This might be ‘bonding’ capital between groups of people with common bonds (e.g. their own families) or ‘bridging’ capital between people from different social groups and interests. The premise is that horizontal networks of individuals and groups enhance individual and community productivity and wellbeing (see here for a useful Wikipedia definition).

Is there anything missing from this analysis?

2) Who should Digital Mentors support?

This area is probably the least explored (despite the best efforts of Mike Amos-Simpson to generate some debate!).

Communities and Local Government (CLG) have pointed towards an emphasis on geographical communities, as opposed to national communities of interest. Their guidance notes suggest a focus on the most deprived communities.

Some people have suggested that we should focus on those who are digitally excluded – the 33% of the population who are not online. However, we might want to broaden this to any person suffering social exclusion who don’t currently have a voice. The following government definition of social exclusion may be helpful: ‘Social Exclusion is a complex and multi-dimensional process. It involves the lack or denial of resources‚ rights‚ goods and services‚ and the inability to participate in the normal relationships and activities‚ available to the majority of people in a society‚ whether in economic‚ social‚ cultural or political arenas. It affects both the quality of life of individuals and the equity and cohesion of society as a whole.’

Just because you own or use a computer doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from a Digital Mentor to guide you through the process of playing a meaningful role in the digital world. In fact, you could argue this makes it more crucial. My vote would be to focus support on those who are socially excluded more widely, rather than just those who are digitally excluded.

What are your thoughts and ideas about who we should be trying to support through Digital Mentors?

3) What organisational/infrastructure changes need to take place to effect this change?

This is my own analysis, and is possibly a bit controversial. The exciting bit of this collaboration is that there seem to be three (possibly four) communities coming together to share ideas:

1. Digital inclusion community – often great community development people, though mostly tied into a notion of digital inclusion focused around training people to use computers and the internet
2. Community media – again, often great community development people, often associated with broadcast media, particularly community radio
3. Web 2.0 pioneers or ‘geeks’ – early adopters who are often techies wanting to create social change, but who aren’t always linked into a particular geographic community
4. Community practitioners working primarily face-to-face with client groups. I wasn’t sure whether to include this group, but was persuaded by a comment from Tracy Todhunter “There are many community groups who want to have an “online” presence but simply don’t have the skills, knowledge or confidence to set about the process.” Tracy talks about her positive experiences as someone relatively new to the Web 2.0 world.

My own analysis is that these communities have been working, if not in silos, then shoulder-to-shoulder, occasionally tripping over each other, in the same space. What the digitalmentor.org site has enabled is a forum for these different communities to exchange ideas, which is incredibly exciting.

But Digital Mentors won’t work unless it represents collaboration from these communities at all levels – grassroots and strategic. The controversial comment from me is that although there seems to be a general view that this stuff is happening up and down the country, there seem to be very few examples where people are genuinely engaging all these communities and delivering a rounded offer which is supporting socially excluded people through a wide spectrum of community and social media. I was really struck by a presentation last week by Gary Copitch from MCIN – see here for a great example of the Community Reporters project so I’m not saying it isn’t happening, I just think great examples are few and far between.

Maybe I’m wrong – in which case please show me otherwise! – but many of the examples seem to be about one angle of what Digital Mentors are.

It seems pretty clear that we need a major cultural shift, both bottom-up and top-down, in order to create a new, more empowering way of doing community development.

As Clare White says: “If we’re really talking about making transformative changes then all the tools and equipment are out there for free. If this is done properly, it could spark wider and wider circles of digital enthusiasts using their ‘powers’ to share, learn and support.”

How can we create the culture needed to effectively empower communities through this programme?

4) What qualities should Digital Mentors have?

Much of the debate on digitalmentor.org seems to have centred on this area. Some key themes are that the Digital Mentor will:

• work at grassroots level with local communities
• understand community building. For example, Mark Walker comments: “Mentors need to be “supporting individuals but increasing capacity in community organisations as well”
• need to have understanding of and be comfortable with technology
• act as a buffer and sounding board for those trying to make sense of new technologies
• link in with other local, regional and national intermediaries. For example, Paul Webster says:  “To really make a difference we need to be prepared to offer health-checks and signposting to local community tech support organisations, open source software, recycled PCs and event the basics of how to protect for viruses and malware etc. Don’t do this and the hard work on the ground to digitally mentor the groups will soon some undone.”
• have skills in social reporting. David Wilcox comments: “I would like to see something in there on the role of what I and others are calling social reporters: people who help promote conversations and collaborations through a mix of online and offline methods and help others do the same. They would draw on bits of citizen journalism, facilitation, community development and social media. Maybe they are community development workers in world 2.0.”
• the desire and skills to share what they’re doing with others. Paul Henderson says: “…the advantage of being able to share what’s going on isn’t often seen”
• have effective facilitation skills (Steve Dale)

There is some discussion about whether you could do it the other way round – get geeks learning community development skills, but the overall preference seems to be to start with the people who know and are trusted and respected by their local community.

The following comments sum up what a Digital Mentor should be very succinctly:

“Somebody who is sufficiently confident about the technology to allow other people not to be scared of it, who doesn’t necessarily know everything about it, but believes in it enough so they can persuade other people that they don’t need to be fearful of it. Which gets people starting to experiment with it and play with it…”. Nick Booth

“Digital mentors should complement existing initiatives to support communities. There are so many initiatives that “drop” onto communities without an understanding of the context.” Noel Hatch

“A key skill is being able to build trust with the community as well as with other groups involved (local authorities, community clubs, local media, individual mentors. Being able to allow time and different levels of participation, building interest and valuing different types of activity and using techniques that balance online & face to face interaction.” Noel again

“The key has to be coming at this from the “mentor” angle…working with a trusted intermediary, a person that you feel comfortable with who can chat off-line from within your own community is invaluable.” Paul Webster

“Digital mentoring should be open to anybody with a passion for the social change that the digital sphere can bring who is willing to share that with other people, particularly with those communities that remain voiceless.” Clare White

Are there any qualities that have been missed? Any in the list that have less relevance than others?

5) A new type of relationship

This leads onto another strong theme emerging – that of the idea of the mentors and mentees being co-creators of digital content. This challenges the traditional model of teachers passing on their knowledge and develops the idea of mutual learning.

On present evidence, the mentors are themselves likely to be new to the innovative application of community and social media.

As Michael Grimes says: “There should be an understanding that everyone involved is getting to grips with the rapidly changing social environment, and each is supported in exploring and navigating it.”

Clare White argues: “Teaching is a pretty old fashioned form of broadcast. Mentoring is more about developing participation, it’s the modern version of show and tell, but without the tell.”

The Digital Inclusion Landscaping document states: “Champions are most effective when they are embedded in local communities and have strong links to relevant community groups. This helps local community organisations to create additional champions and achieve multiplier effects. Ideally these schemes also lay the groundwork for students to become volunteers, creating a virtuous circle that sustains the programme.”

The concept of Digital Mentors flattens hierarchies and shies away from a dependency model – the idea is that the mentees can soon become mentors (paid, as well as voluntary).

Do you agree with that we should be aiming for the mentees to become mentors? If so, should we aim to measure this as an outcome of the project and if so, how?

Some key principles

Some key principles seem to have emerged which should be the basis of any sound bid:

Helen Milner summarises these as:

• A new way to have a voice
• Community-up
• Supported with resources
• Communities and tech-savvy helpers
• Not just one kind of digital mentor
• Innovating and building on what’s happening now
• Building in sustainability

Paul Webster also adds some further principles:

• Primary funding is to ensure digital mentors work with communities to give them a stronger voice
• Third sector well represented through local infrastructure
• Efficiency in training through regional general digital mentoring training or national workshops on specific technologies
• Regional and national networks are used to get maximum efficiency
• Good practice shared through online and face to face networking and story sharing
• Ensure established digital innovations are made replicable in other parts of the country

Some further thoughts summarised from digitalmentor.org:

• People focused: Mike Amos-Simpson “To me this programme is all about people – finding, enthusing, inspiring, supporting and involving people and that’s where the bulk of the budget should go.”
• Inclusive: Emma Solomon “My main concern is that it is maintained, by whoever ends up managing it, as a truly open opportunity for anyone already delivering this agenda, and capable of delivering more of it.” Clare White: “We need to find a balance between giving people adequate reward for their time and opening up our knowledge and experience to ensure that anybody with online experience who wants to share that for community benefit can find the role and take it on voluntarily.”
• “Authentic input from grassroots organisations and from people with experience in the field along with strong strategic oversight from an organisation/s with capacity.” Clare White
• Peer-to-peer support and sharing of experiences. There’s a great video clip from David Wilcox of Clay Shirkey talking about how we can encourage people to document their experiences of failure in using this technology, as well as success, through storytelling, not lists.
• National connectors, who can help amalgamate the grassroots work and make appropriate links with relevant organisations and policies.
• Include solutions for low-tech environments where communities don’t have community spaces and access to ICT kit.
• Strong user involvement in shaping the project.

Do you agree with all the principles outlined above? Are there other principles you’d like to see added?

A possible model

Based on all of the above, I wanted to get down on paper an idea I’ve bounced off a few people of how to translate some of these ideas into a possible model. Please note this doesn’t represent an ‘official’ view from UK online centres or indeed Voicebox, just an idea to get us started on a new debate.

I started off thinking that the demonstrators should be small, ‘deep’ projects – maybe 20 or 30 - where you focus resources in a deprived area through a grant to grassroots organisation to encourage individuals and communities to express their issues through a wide range of community and social media. This would be supported by a range of offline and online resources and training. However, this doesn’t allow for the inclusivity and scale that the project seems to demand. So, how can you achieve both depth and scale?

There are already around 7,000 community projects (a modest estimate) involving digital media in some shape or form, but very few true pioneers who are at the cutting edge of community and social media and using it with their client groups. The first stage of Digital Mentors could be about embedding the approach in existing projects. It seems that a crucial element is training of these existing community practitioners in 1) Web 2.0 technology (community websites, blogs, wikis, social networking tools etc) 2) facilitation skills (community/social reporting) 3) community media (community radio and other community broadcasting) – I know this is a bit of an artificial separation as the three areas blend together.

The idea:

Phase 1

1) Start with putting together a bank of trainers, with a combination of skills from the three areas above (one person is unlikely to have them all).
2) At the very start of the project, design a programme and hold a series of face-to-face training events at regional and sub-regional level, aiming to engage a wide range of community development practitioners (in the hundreds). These become your bank of Digital Mentors.
3) For a limited period, go with the ‘let a thousand flowers’ bloom philosophy, supported and encouraged by ongoing online and face-to-face resources. Encourage the Digital Mentors to be creative, challenging and consider the social change they want to achieve. My current thinking is that this would largely be unfunded but you would have a small capital/revenue pot to seed fund some projects which really needed it.
4) During this period, set up a Digital Showcase, which would provide a forum for 1) project beneficiaries, ie the communities themselves, to showcase their work and 2) for the projects to talk about the social change they want to achieve.
5) Organise a ‘people’s vote’ (a bit like the Big Lottery Fund’s People’s Millions) which would allow other practitioners and members of the public to vote for the project they think would benefit most from more resources to develop into a deeper, more impactful project.

Phase 2

6) On the basis of this vote, provide grants to a small number of projects (20-30) to develop their projects.
7) In the meantime, the existing Digital Mentors could continue to run their projects on an unfunded basis. Some of them may run aground, but others may bloom. The consortium should look for ways to leverage in other funding to support these projects and would continue to co-ordinate an online resource bank.
8 ) As part of the evaluation, CLG would have a control group (the unfunded Digital Mentors) to be able to see the impact of a funded vs unfunded model. In reality, many of the ‘unfunded’ projects may be funded through other sources, so this will need to be built into thinking about sustainability.

There are undoubtedly flaws which I haven’t considered and I haven’t attempted to capture my scribbled Venn diagrams, but the important things, I think, are to find a way for hitherto divided communities of practice to come together to enable both breadth and depth and, importantly, to create a significant social impact.

What do you think of this as a possible model? What additional benefits and positive outcomes do you foresee with this model? Which elements of the model do you dislike and why? What alternatives could you suggest?

Next steps for the Voicebox partnership

Whilst we await a decision from CLG on our Expression of Interest, we thought it would be good to outline our thoughts on next steps for taking the Voicebox partnership forward (in hopeful anticipation that the EOI will get through…).

Thanks to those of you who have expressed an interest in being involved in the partnership, either through the Digital Mentor blog or by signing up to the Contribute section of this site. To save those of you who have already inputted via digitalmentor.org, we’ve automatically transferred your details across so that there’s a single list of potential partners.

As you may know, our original plan was to appoint workstream leads before the Expression of Interest was submitted on 24 November. However, we decided to delay a decision on this, as it became clear that we should focus on our approach first and getting that right before assigning roles. It also gives people who have come to this later in the day - particularly those who came to the CLG workshop on 19 November - an opportunity to get involved.

We’d really like to spend the next fortnight focusing on developing the ideas for the approach to the project - particularly the criteria for the Digital Mentors - before making decisions about funded roles within the partnership. We do appreciate this will leave some of you in a state of limbo but this feels like the right thing to do. We’ve acknowledged that the open innovation process isn’t easy, but are committed to seeing it through.

It would be really useful to have a face to face meeting bringing together all those with an interest in being part of the Voicebox partnership - please watch this space for further information.

In the meantime, we’d like to encourage you to contribute your thoughts and ideas as to how the project should develop, either under specific workstream headings or as part of the ‘Big picture’ section. You can either comment on what has already been posted, or write your own blog post. Just email admin@voice-box.org.uk to set this up.

If you haven’t already signed up as a potential partner, it’s not too late to do so - just click on Contribute and register your details. Thanks to everyone who is joining us in this endeavour - it is shaping up to being a really interesting journey for all of us!