I agree at the concern for user involvement and if it wasn’t to be a consideration it would be a guaranteed failure. I don’t however agree at the inverted snobbery and frankly find the tone quite irritating.

I’m not tendering, I won’t profit from involvement so far as I can see, so I think that classifies me as a volunteer. I would most definitely class myself as white middle class and yes I have access to that social media wizzardry which is how I’m here making a reply!

Does that mean I have no understanding of some of the communities this programme is trying to reach? Does it mean I’ve lived a life comfortably isolated life from the issues that face people now living in the “rough” parts of town? Well you can make your own judgement as I don’t feel the need to back up my credentials or life experiences to justify that yes I’m white, yes I’m middle class and yes I’m comfortable with technology and yes I’d like to contribute to this kind of programme.

The involvement of those the programme is trying to reach is critical. The assumption that the way to achieve this is to simply recruit someone in a wheelchair, someone from the Traveller community, a single woman, somebody deaf and somebody young is at best tokenistic and at worst out & out prejudiced. It would be much more useful to give consideration to how the programme can seek to involve those that are ‘digitally excluded’ than to start by isolating those already involved with trying to contribute (freely). So my plea to Tracey to direct that energy into more positive suggestions that could actually be used to strengthen the programme, not waste time ridiculing those involved on the basis of their skin colour and gender.

I didn’t think Tracey’s post was all that bad really. I agree with her. From experience, we have seen countless schemes failing to deliver the goods because the people who needed to be involved, were not involved (hope that makes sense!). I’ve decided to take a back seat on this and concentrate on what we’re trying to achieve as an organisation. And that is actively seeking out the kind of groups Tracey speaks about. If we achieve some of what we aim to do, then great. If we fail, then at least we have recorded the journey. All of which will be available for others to take and use as they see fit, digital mentors, IT trainers… whoever - the information will never be exclusive, which I think is why i’m a tad wary of where this scheme might be heading.

Hello all - i think we have a solution to your problem - i was at 2gether08, i think tracey was too (lots of concerned white people talking - and the gate locked to the local community) - we ethnics and working classes who have a clue are out there and can reach into the communities you are talking about because well… we hang out with them, spend time understanding them, work together on stuff and make it happen - your model is a bit cracked - there is lots that needs to happen in communities before they can embrace this stuff - wanna talk?

Hi Stuart - that does make sense and I’ve seen failures & poor services for those reasons too. I don’t disagree with the desire for user involvement I just disagreed with this particular approach. The emphasis as far as I can see is to engage with those who are digitally excluded, not to assume that this means all minority groups. Its very likely that minority groups will make up a very large proportion of the people the programme should be targeting but I don’t think that justifies recruiting people to be involved in a tokenistic manner.

As I see it those people having the discussions at this stage are the people starting to form ideas, if there were to be others involved from any of those minority groups then arguably they wouldn’t be the digitally excluded people the programme is seeking to reach! If the programme were to progress and be led by white middle-class males with no good consideration to user involvement then it would deserve a great deal of criticism, but I find that a very unlikely scenario.

If Tracey has positive suggestions for how to engage the relevant target groups and to then subsequently seek to involve them in the design and delivery of the programme I think that would be a really valuable and welcome contribution. Having said that it would be good to get some clarity on who those target groups actually are because it does feel as though much of this debate is speaking in very general terms.

Good luck with your own efforts - I have to say you’re probably being very sensible to concentrate on your own stuff, I’m starting to think along those lines myself. What I’m finding interesting about this process so far is that its difficult to have a truly ‘open’ approach while theres uncertainties about the motivations, roles & relationships of those involved. Possibly this will become clearer further down the line which might be a better time to be involved?

Mike wrote: “What I’m finding interesting about this process so far is that its difficult to have a truly ‘open’ approach while theres uncertainties about the motivations, roles & relationships of those involved. Possibly this will become clearer further down the line which might be a better time to be involved?”
I agree. When developing the Open Innovation Exchange bid, which inspired the open process here, we found it essential to:
* create an open site for discussion, documents etc - thanks Dave for doing that here!
* promote that to anyone interested
* form a core group of people prepared to do the work of developing the bid
* then agree a common purpose, roles, allocate tasks while keeping the discussion going and allowing other people to join the core group
* identify work packages that could be costed, draft them, and share everything with others except the costs, which must be private under tendering procedures.

We found it essential, early on, to identify who would be the “anchor” organisation (Ruralnet in the case) and then who would facilitate, pull the work packages together etc.

As I’ve commented over here I think it would help a great deal if UK Online Centres, Ruralnet, and Citizens Online could clarify what roles they envisage, and whether they are in one consortium or two.

Then we could create out a development plan that includes the briefing workshop, expression of interest, and wider engagement. I think that would help deal with the very real issues raised by Tracey and others about - as I see it - the relationship between the tech-savvy early proponents, community activists, intermediary organisations, and ultimate beneficiaries.

The big lesson to come from the Open Innovation Exchange bid was that open processes are not successfully self-organising when you have to pitch for funds within the properly tight constraints of Government contracts. You need to be smart in at least three ways: 1) making an offer that meets the bid criteria; 2) doing that through an open process; 3) and ensuring that you meet the needs of beneficiaries. There’s ultimate little point in my view in getting excited about 2) and 3) unless we are really serious about 1)

Helen Milner of UK Online Centres has said: ““We’re very happy to do the process leg work and yes we are interested in orgs who want to join in a consortia bid with us and Citizens Online”.”

… which could be terrific, if supported by, say, Ruralnet who managed the Open Innovation Exchange bid and have great credibility here through work including Net:Gain and DirectSupport, Citizens Online and others here with a great variety of skills.

Dave - I hate to add to your facilitation work load - but is it time to try and pull those potential partners into a development process thread? These things always crop up on a weekend, so we may have to wait a few days for a response.

To declare my interest: I’m happy to share my experience of open collaboration processes and do a bit in facilitating if useful … but even more delighted if others take that role. In terms of the bid, 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 these are community development workers in world 2.0. Doesn’t matter what you call them, but they are not primarily tech people, though they do needs enough tech skills.

Mike, all - does that help? Or am I being too prescriptive about process here?

Hi David - no prescriptive is good and I think your declaration is good too (I thought late last night that that could be a good thing to do). I was really picking up from Stuarts ‘wariness’ which I’d heard expressed before and wondering why?! Surely if you’re wary you’d try & shape an ‘open collaboration’ - but then I realised maybe this is where it stems from - how open will the process actually be if motivations, interests & relationships aren’t clear?

What I was trying to provoke in the other discussion was to see if there was somebody to take a lead from. The obvious person seemed to be Helen on the basis that I thought she was approaching this group to collaborate towards their bid. Then I realise maybe this isn’t the case & actually this is a community trying to be all things to all people - anyone can collaborate with us, anyone can use this site etc. - but actually to me what that creates is a process without clear direction and without leadership. I know that for some leadership is a dirty word but I don’t see much evidence of progress in anything where some form of good leadership is lacking.

Anyway thanks David for starting to pull things together. My own declaration is that mostly I just have a personal interest in how the programme will work. As things stand that would just be adding my thoughts & nothing more. If there were to be a clear role for supporting young people then my interest would change and I’d be very interested both in development & delivery and I have some very clear ideas as to how a programme could engage and motivate young people based on previous things I’ve done. I would suggest that in most community work its a good strategy to reach out through children & young people anyway but I suspect this isn’t really on the radar at the moment, so for now I have no motivation besides an interest in whats going on!

@Erinma - if you have suggestions for how to engage the DIGITALLY excluded then please do share your ideas as they could be very useful - maybe you could ask Dave Briggs for access to write a blog on here about your ideas?

Hi, in fairness, the post above is only an extract of a longer piece I wrote on my own blog about Digital Mentors in general and not about the debate being played out here. It was prompted by an ex colleague who said he was going to tender for the digital mentor scheme as he could “develop a few off the shelf training packages ….. and …bung a few banks of PCs in community centres”. For me, this kind of approach would simply create yet another level of exclusion. I am new to the world of the social web, and I’m still finding my feet (yes Erinma I was at 2gether08 ans as a result of that I’ve met knowledgeable and inspiring people who have helped me to develop my own skills). For the past 20 years I’ve worked in community development, as a volunteer and as a paid professional. I work with numerous volunteers from what might be called “socially excluded groups”. I can’t speak for them - they are more than capable of doing that for themselves - my original post was simply a plea to everyone considering being part of the Digital Mentor process (which I feel has been echoed in the responses over on my own blog). Quite simply, when you think about developing partnerships with community groups… ask us what we want don’t tell us what we need!!
Like I said in my original post, I have great faith in my “twitter friends”, many of whom have commented here, that a successful bid will be a partnership and create real opportunities for everyone to develop the skills and confidence to use social media in the way most appropriate for their (our) situation. This also means ensuring adequate investment and access to the tools so that everyone can participate if they wish. For example, when the wind blew my ‘phone line down yesterday I couldn’t access the web to follow this debate. Yes, my local library does have broadband, but I don’t have a car and there’s no bus on Fridays so I became (yet again) one of the digitally excluded individuals this scheme could help. I wish you all the best of luck - and make sure I’m top of that list when you are in a position to provide training and support to community projects, there a dozens of low carbon community groups willing and ready to learn.

Hi Tracey - its a good plea and I agree with your concerns for that kind of approach. What I was taking issue with was that I’ve seen the opposite in many situations - tokenistic recruitment of people to supposedly represent certain groups of people but actually they’re not representative and its more often than not a ticking box exercise to ensure that certain quotas of people are ‘represented’ which I’m sure you’d agree doesn’t happen simply because you are of the same ethnic group etc. (I did also take issue with singling out white males but that stems from frustrations at facing prejudice within the voluntary sector in that way before).

I agree very much that its going to be really important that this programme gives very good consideration to people and not simply throwing technology at people or wowing them with social media buzz terms and expecting that to become an inclusive process - this is a point that has been raised already in the discussions and I’ve added my thoughts to those.

Ultimately the programme can never be all things to all people so I think its important that there is a debate about where the priorities will lie and in mind of maximising the potential the programme can have with the various limitations it will need to work within. I think this can start by first identifying who the ‘digitally excluded’ actually are (and not just assuming they’re who we might think they are from other community initiatives and making allowances for those who may wish to remain outside for whatever reason), secondly by much more consideration to what the role of a digital mentor actually will be than has so far happened, and thirdly getting some clarity as to who is actually taking these ideas forward, what the various roles will be in doing so and the relationships between those people & organisations involved.

I hope you get your phone line fixed - these days I find it very difficult to function without web access which is maybe an issue in itself!

HI All. I have been speaking to my girlfriend who is a speech and language therapist with the NHS. She works with all sorts of families, some of whom are certainly on the unfortunate side of the digital divide. There will clearly be challenges with identifying and assisting those in need of digital mentoring from existing public services. However, there are definitely possibilities.

Left a comment on another thread (thoughts for another time - find i’m doing that more and more, replies and tweets rather than my own blog - guess others know the feeling!).

NAVCA are interested in this as we can see the value of giving local people a louder voice partly for their own community development, but also so they have an equal opportunity of participating in local democracy such as their Local Strategic Partnerships to increase community representation with their Local Authority / PCT and other public sector bodies.

We co-ordinate a network of regional ICT champions, in touch with local infrastructure organisations equipping them with the skills to cascade knowledge and help others.

Things I am thinking about
- the role of CVS development workers as Digital Mentors - in touch with the groups that make up their community
- sharing - this is vital - but with an emphasis on off-line methods as ’show-and-tell’ can be more effective than reading case studies
- meeting people where they are and not taking them to ‘hostile’ environments to use equipment (such as schools and libraries where they feel out of place)
- being confronted with - and having solutions for low-tech environments, slow-or-no broadband - technological exclusion
- being prepared to meet people who aren’t comfortable with PCs and need mentoring in mastering the basic computer skills
- training the trainers as a more efficient and sustainable way for knowledge to penetrate downwards
- the importance of the third sector (VCS, SocEnt and Co-ops) in making all this work

A thought about ‘big national initiatives’. Some of you (although proving the point of this argument …. not many of you) will have heard of the eVoice CMS platform. A kind assesment of this would be, it was a failure….! Well a failure from central government point of view due to the poor take-up, but you know why, because it was promoted by the wrong people to the wrong people.
However in local authorities where it was promoted through the voluntary and community sector it has actually been successful and groups are still signing up to use it (even though its on a ‘life support machine’). I hope it can be revived … if not there will be a lot of groups with no web presence next March!

My point, as we are reading this we all know the digital stuff, because we use it all the time, and playing with the latest Apple/Windows product seems to turn us on (!) but as true mentors we should be listening to what people want to do in their situation / community / activist group etc. and then be able to design national initiatives that meet their needs or to pluck the appropriate digital tool from the case and show them how it can make a difference to their lives.

Would be happy to unpick and bat around the facilitation, co-ordination roles
Don’t know who else shares my thoughts …

Paul - I’ve raised issues on the “Collaborate with UK Online Centres” thread about how discussion here might help form consortia.
How can we start to come at this from the other end - as you flag up - thinking about what digital mentors will do, and in our bid-formulation engaging with others who know the needs of local areas/groups/people intimately?
How do we make sure that this is ultimately designed from the bottom-up while having to participate in a top-down process?
I think that’s the major challenge for anyone offering to lead an open, collaborative, innovative process and bid.
May I ask if NAVCA is a potential bid leader, or are you watching and waiting:-)?

Hi Paul & David - I think a good question to ask here is “who will be the digital mentors”? What I think I’m picking up is an assumption that they will be friendly geeks and theres some sense to that. However……………….

I think that if that is the approach taken that may well become one of the biggest obstacles to involvement. I’m certain I’m not alone that I’ve had many many conversations with all sorts of people about what they ‘could do’ and how easy it is to do things with the web or technology. Very occasionally somebody is actually interested - most usually though what really happens is they think I’m just a geek - they don’t identify themselves as being able to do what I do because I’m a ‘gadget man’!

At this stage my personal thoughts are that the people the programme is seeking to become Digital Mentors should not be people like me - they should instead be the kind of people that the programme wants to support can identify with. That is people who may not be using technology in the most efficient way, or may have a horrible looking bog/website but are actually using digital media while facing similar limitations to those the programme seeks to involve.

There is of course a role for the geeks and a critical one, but as I see it this would be to support those other people to improve their skills in using digital media, but also in being able to share their learning with others. An example of how this could work for me is programmes & learning events where the Digital Mentors work alongside the geeks to deliver joint learning activities to participants. The person that people will take their inspiration from is the person doing it for real - not the technical wizz that can wow them with how much good stuff is out there.

People may disagree with this (and I imagine they will from the direction the discussions appear to be heading in so far), but that may be good reason to start a discussion off along these lines and asking ‘who exactly will be a Digital Mentor?’)

Mike - I really like your approach. “Come and try this, it’s good for you” spoken by geeks, hasn’t worked too well. If it was more “here’s what’s working for me” from someone-like-us, it might. So, non-geeks in the front line.
Maybe the first of a set of principles for a really innovative approach?

I think I said things in an earlier comment that do agree with your point Mike.

One of the best examples i’ve seen of what I think you are heading towards are the e-champions put in place by the Sunderland DC10plus project. This has given trained local community champions the chance to help others within their community to tell their stories and even move on to college and employment. The e-champions know the digital tools that can be most effective, but have their roots in their community.

The approach where communities “show-and-tell” to each other (locally and facilitated countrywide too) seems to work well with the people who want to make a difference setting the agendas.

Geeks - yes neded as well, as banks of knowledge, to experiment with the “next best thing” and to cascade training.

Regional and national co-ordination - yes needed as well, to keep the overall picture of whats happening and what works well for knowledge sharing.

You know everything said here makes sense. There is however still another structural model in my mind which possibly describes Dig Mentors.

I totally agree that for interest to be sparked, adoption to happen, confidence and context to be built, people need to be able to project themselves on to digital opportunity, not ‘be transformed’ by it. The transformation is that of the person via the medium.

At DU, our version of e-champions are Digital Ambassadors, and we use this model in our work in sheltered housing. But Dig Ambassadors do more than just support and stimulate their community; they also make a bridge with the management and represent their communities’ digital desires to scheme and to senior management.

I would suggest that still at this stage – advanced as I think it is in environments and within communities that didn’t even have computers a year ago – the support these front liners themselves need is not from geeks, it’s from a mediated form of geekdom – and that mediation is the DU Tutor, or even DU HQ. It’s that mediation/ translation/ interpretation/ extrapolation that I think are key characteristics of a Digital Mentor, or mentoring service.

But different communities and sets of learners are different and different approaches work best according to situation. I think one can surmise there *tend* to be a common set of characteristics for, say, older people in sheltered housing communities. Some of these characteristics may also be shared by other groups, irrespective of age. As Mike started out with, there needs to be agreement on ‘what Dig Mentors are’. But there also needs to be agreement on, broadly, ‘who they are being tasked to reach’ and ‘to what end’ – what does success look like in each case?

Again repeating myself, but hopefully what you end up with is a programme where we can ‘mix and match’ approaches, pass people on or over (‘up’ to geeks, ‘sideways’ to community developers, ‘sideways, and up’ to other Dig Mentors –or Digital Interpreters) and where those involved in delivery can also trade and further develop their own skills sets as well.

Hello all
To me the success of these sorts of projects is often based on making sure you’re working with and supporting the people who are already successfully engaged with hard to reach communities. Often this requires a local connection, sometimes connected together through regional and national networks.
I support the potential role of UK online because it does have centres based in communities around the UK, often in deprived neighbourhoods, often run by community organisations closely linked to the needs of their communities.
In my mind this network forms a backbone to a bid, but it is certainly not the only ingredient needed to reach people in hard to reach communities and make sure the bid reflects their needs.
Perhaps selecting one particular group shows how other partners could unlock the options.
A focus on older people, for example, would point to a relationship with Age Concern [soon to merge with Help the Aged] and the Silver Surfers work of Digital Unite.
At a local level this combined network would be home to the digital mentors in various settings, such as older people’s centres [many of which in my area have a relationship with UK Online]. The mentors and the local organisations would be able to attract and support older people in a range of ways.
For my money this is the ideal level at which mentors would operate - supporting individuals but increasing capacity in community organisations as well.
Support for mentors could be coordinated at a sub-regional level [eg Age Concern usually operates at county level], regional [UK online, ICT Champions] or using national resources eg Citizens Online, UK Online, Digital Unite.
The same applies if the focus was on people with disabilities, homeless people, young people, etc. Agencies that can deliver a network of active local support for those people would be my first choice as partner.
Perhaps the bid needs to be open-ended about how it will work with these networks as it grows, but I hope such a partnership approach can be integral to delivery of the programme, as well as the bidding process.
Of course resources are limited but, as the thread has started to reflect, it’s the inclusion bit that is important here. There are plenty of lessons to be learnt about that topic that go way back, starting with the need to invest in community engagement before wires and boxes.
Hope this helps?
Mark

As a community based charity our main service is the provision of a 14 station computer suite from which we deliver free computer courses in the most deprived ward in our Borough. The suite has been open for nearly 9 years and our courses are designed to help the community to gain confidence and knowledge in the use and uses of the computer and the internet. Our ‘Getting Started on the Computer’ course leads on to ‘Email & the Internet’ and then to ‘Next Steps’ modules taking the students through the MS Office suite in small bite sized chunks. There are also more social courses like ‘Editing Photos for Starters’, ‘Photo Slide Shows’ and ‘Family History’. We also encourage people who do not have computers to take courses and then provide them with a home computer from our pool of loan computers.

Our students have progressed to higher education and on to university and been accepted back into, or even entered, the job market for the first time. We are aware of the local demographics which is mainly 50 plus, but with a strong mixture of the unemployed, single parents, young families and the disabled. Our courses are invariably oversubscribed and we and we have a waiting list for most courses.

Our biggest problem is the continual search for funding to keep the charity open. You are all concerned about organising a bid and how to reach the targat market to deliver Digital Mentoring but nobody has mentioned sustainability and how you will integrate with individual organisations who are already delivering at the sharp end.

As for delivery I know of at least two community centres with computer suites who can’t get funding to run courses, and our local college has also cut their computer staff because of funding issues. That is why after running a recent advert, we now have a pool of tutors who we can call on. We have the Tutors, we have the students, we have the capacity, but what we don’t have is sustainable funding funding.

Therefore I ask is this going to be an integrated or a fragmented initiative? It has all the hallmarks of heavy spending on infrastructure and administration but limited spending on actual working initiatives and no thought on sustainabilty.

It smacks of a latest flavour of the month initative with a pot of money to spend, and when it is spent let’s look for the next one to hang our hats on, and isn’t it a shame that all those digital mentors can’t access funding now.

Cynical I know but I suspect true.

Mike

Mike, I understand your cynicism - we’ve all seen these things come and go and we’ve all seen hoardes of consultants making the money while the people who really understand local communities have no entry point into making a living.

Here’s a few things that make this different:
- sustainability has been raised as an issue, but what sustainability does a digital mentor actually need? 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. The research and pilot development will be able to provide a lot of evidence on the outputs, ‘what works’, which is what small orgs often struggle to demonstrate. Therefore it will unlock further funding and perhaps other avenues like trade. I don’t see that there’s any particular reason why we should be expecting the government to fund this forever.
- it’s not about infrastructure and administration at all as I understand it. So far what I’ve seen has been the big organisations who can afford the time and resources putting time into developing ideas while a community of practitioners is developing that has been meeting, sharing and discussing what this is all about. Many of those are absolutely at the ’sharp end’ and there is strong appreciation for all the other ‘hidden’ projects that are doing this work very well in their own communities because most of us have been there or still are.

I fully appreciate the difficulties in getting funding for ongoing projects because I’m working on it myself, but isn’t that a much wider problem and something that the government needs lobbying on separately? The collaborative approach here is valuable - there is no way any small community organisation can deliver this project but with one or several large organisations dealing with the admin and the infrastructure, the grassroots organisations can concentrate on using that to support what they want to do.

Finally, the initiative will be integrated if people decide to integrate. That doesn’t mean letting go of independence, but it does mean working constructively together instead of looking for walls. If it doesn’t look like it on the surface, it might be worth emphasising that for all that young Dave Briggs creates a slick website and many of the people here know the jargon, it is a community of very different people coming from different perspectives but all interested in what can be done online. We’re contributing what we can afford to and many people are simply seeing this as another project to collaborate on rather than expecting to be directly involved (or employed) in the bid.

Clare

@Mike I did raise the issue of sustainability in a comment here http://digitalmentor.org/2008/11/collaborate-with-uk-online-centres/#comment-101

To me this programme is all about people - finding, enthusing, inspiring, supporting and involving people and thats where the bulk of the budget should go. Not on technology that will quickly outdate and not on centres that as Mike rightly points out are difficult to sustain. If people are motivated and confident to see the value of using technology to make their normal lives better they’re much more likely to seek ways to use it - at that point there are many different organisations already providing options for them to develop their skills and equipment further - as I see it this programme should lead in to those services, not replicate or even directly involve themselves in them.

I don’t think I agree with “It has all the hallmarks of heavy spending on infrastructure and administration but limited spending on actual working initiatives and no thought on sustainabilty.” - its too soon to make that judgement, but I do think you’re right to raise it as a concern. I don’t think theres a need to have to spend a great deal at all on the administration and infrastructure - there are existing good models out there that could easily be adopted to create an inspiring programme that involves a very wide range of delivery agents and equally importantly community leaders (not professional community leaders in my opinion!). Of course I may be proven wrong but at least with the approach being taken here theres just a possibility that those that do take the programme forward will listen - in normal circumstances that opportunity wouldn’t exist unless you were specifically invited. So please keep inputting thoughts and opinions because cycnical or not its better than muttering it to yourself with nobody listening