I think you have a point about the need for speed in so far as its important that people don’t get left too far behind at a time when development is rapid. Having said that a lot of that rapid development is actually in making the web more accessible so arguably online participation will actually become easier in time.

I agree completely with the idea of reaching through trusted intermediaries – that was what I meant by using those to then reach out to those further away.

Are those that just vote and don’t participate in discussion part of the target audience?

As for the cascade model of engaging with the hard to reach, I have mixed feelings about its capability to succeed at the pace required (it may be a necessary part of the solution, but it is probably not sufficient for a widespread success).

I think that it is about working with as many existing trusted intermediaries (local, national and shared interest organisations) as possible plus identifying causes, content and contexts that stimulate responses from people that ultimately encourage them to take steps up the Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA) ladder.

I’m not sure I agree with the strength of anonymity in this context – undoubtedly that has benefits for individuals in some circumstances but I’m not sure its useful from the perspective of aiming to build supportive communities.

It is traditional to argue for a hybrid mix of offline events followed by online activities working with people with shared interests, problems, issues or location. Wherever that is practicable, I think that it is preferable.

However this does create problems for some of those marginalised people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods who do not have the motivation, confidence or desire to attend meetings local or otherwise. This is a significant section of our target group.

Secondly, historically and currently, anonymity is a major strength of online participation, particularly for those who are not comfortable in groups of any kind. This automatically opens up engagement & participation opportunities for some very ‘hard to reach’ individuals.

Thirdly a significant number of our excluded individuals are house-bound or have limited mobility for different reasons. This includes some older people, some disabled people, carers, lone parents of young children (during the evening), those traumatised by life experiences etc.

It is also my experience of many years attending meetings that many people are often unable to attend when the meeting comes around due to busy professional & personal lives. Given the access to empowering technologies that we have today, we should not exclude those who cannot or will not travel to meetings.

I am not arguing for exclusively online engagement strategies, just taking a contrarian view to the majority of previous posts to try & highlight some of the issues from another perspective.

As an excluded person once said to me:

“It’s not me that is ‘hard to reach’ it’s those people with the money & power that are”

1) Theres talk of online communities but then ironically (and not unwelcome) is the suggestion to meet up face to face to discuss. Is there something in this that I need to take away from this online forum to the digital mentors approach? There’s still something about creating a physical meeting place in many of the initiatives I’ve looked into…

I think theres a need to ensure that neither of these exclude the other ie. face to face discussions should seek to provide an online option for those that can’t physically attend and where online discussions have happened they need to be downloaded for the benefit of those that aren’t yet comfortable with online discussions.

2) Isn’t that the point?! The caution about not swamping with technology is very relevant but if the approach I suggested is adapted the idea would be to engage people through issues they already have and to support them to take advantage of relevant technology towards addressing those issues. For example community groups wishing to campaign on a particular issue could be supported to take advantage of social media and collaboration tools – the focus as they see it would be making their campaign successful, the focus from the trainers perspective would be helping them understand the technology available to them and working on the basis that as people become familiar with experimenting they will seek to experiment further without needing support.

(and no social media isn’t too aspirational once you strip away the geek speak)

3) Very definitely but again isn’t that the point?

5) Really good point this and perhaps provides a case for not only having local delivery but maybe running short events where communities of interest can come together for some intensive ‘training’

1) I think there is a definite issue in terms of trust, which can be very effectively developed online, but which happens an awful lot quicker when people meet face-to-face. I think that anyone who really understands online communities will advocate the blending of off and online mediums wherever possible.

2) I think your last point has it. Done right, nobody will get swamped. Lots of people take photos on their phones. Well, if you share those with people on the web, that’s social media. But is it really that hard? Part of the joy of social media etc is the fact that it makes publishing so very easy, and people can do it using the most appropriate medium for them. Even if they prefer writing by hand to anything else – find them a friend with a scanner and you’re away!

3) Skills are most certainly lacking amongst staff and employees pretty much everywhere outside of tech startups! But it doesn’t need to be hard, or overly technical. This stuff is potentially so easy, just need people to have the right direction, not to let them get overawed.

4) Some kind of p2p network is vital at two levels – connecting digital mentors in different areas to one another, and also connecting the recently digitally mentored, again regardless of geographical location. The thing is that there is no textbook on this stuff, it’s impossible to pin everything down at one moment and document the processes perfectly. Therefore the best way to learn and to develop is to keep sharing.

5) There a need as I mentioned above for communities of practice or interest to exist both for the digital mentors and those they help. Using online methods obviously suits disparate communities as it enables everyone to be in one place without leaving their homes. Maybe it would be necessary to break areas down into cells, have groups of people meeting in village halls, all tuned into the same virtual learning environment hosted by the digital mentor.

6) Tapping into existing groups and communities must be a prerequisite of ant action in this area. There is no point having government funded schemes trampling over perfectly good volunteer projects that are already happening. The aim should be to fill in gaps and link projects together.

I also agree that some of the main aspects are simple. In our town, the local library has just been shut, hopefully temporarily. This cuts out the only free accessible computers with internet access in a very wide area, including many of the most deprived wards in the country. It is easy for people working in offices to forget that if you don’t have broadband at home and you don’t have a car, you can easily find yourself more than half an hour away from the nearest internet connection, which rather destroys your chances of spending any time on digital activism. Government consultations to PDFs that are 60 pages long with discussion forums that take 15 minutes to register for aren’t very easy to deal with either, since you’re asking

In terms of long-term sustainability, we can assume, I think, that groups of stronger volunteer networks will be able to coordinate funding activities if required and will be better connected to grant opportunities. And not to forget how much of our basic tools are free – I would much prefer to see public investment focussed on infrastructure and time for developing mentoring skills and for participating rather than building expensive websites and tools. We now see developers being paid through big commercial (or non-profit) projects that have the knock-on benefit of providing free spaces for much bigger communities and hopefully this will continue to be the case.

The government role in all this is very interesting and their investment and interest is very welcome. But what I’m sure many of them have thought about is that the first consequence of raising digital activism will be a huge amount of hassle as people find their voices and start to share information. Perhaps this hits the local councils first. It’s quite important that any digital mentoring scheme pilotted by the government can maintain a hands-off approach with not too much monitoring of participants, rather with outcomes being tracked.

+1 for David Wilcox’s point about social reporters as a possible core theme. How about giving people a voice as the whole point of the process, rather than expecting specific outcomes about community cohesion/economic inclusion/whatever. Maybe the best thing Government can deliver is someone to listen to them?

+ 1 also for all of Dave Briggs’ summary points – to which I’d add that you won’t get far without working through existing networks, which is almost always about gaining trust from key individuals.

So +1 for David Wilcox’s point about always starting with face-to-face, for any community project.

Another mantra I learned from David is “Go with the stones that roll”. With a limited budget I wouldn’t produce lots of case studies to persuade reluctant people to do what I think is best for them – I’d get out and get behind the people who want to do something now, and help them become the ambassadors for change. The press releases about their successes will be the case studies.

Sustainability may come from organisations in local communities continuing to self-organise [like they do already], but working with excluded communities isn’t exactly ideal for raising advertising or business sponsorship [especially in an economic meltdown].

I helped set up an IT drop-in centre with the Big Issue in Brighton in the late 90s – email and web access for people without a letterbox who weren’t allowed in the library. It opened with UK Online funding and ran for four very successful years.

UK Online then lost political favour and entered its wilderness years. Funding stopped and the project hobbled on for two years trying vainly to access mainstream skills-based funding [ever tried funding something like this through an LSC?]. It closed about five years ago, and the Big Issue office is now gone.

The most sustainable solution? Whatever your hopes for exit strategies or social enterprise, in some cases it’s more grant funding. Ideally it comes from an engaged and benevolent funder, giving focus and direction to people on the ground, concentrating on what works and helping people achieve it, and networking with other funders and people of influence to celebrate and endorse local solutions. From the little I know there may be something to be learned here from DC10plus?

And finally, whatever the budget, don’t forget to budget for the needs of the people who you’re working with.

Not having the credit rating to get a home telephone, broadband or a mobile phone is as big a barrier to engagement as any other I can think of. It’s not just about fees for digital mentors – it’s about being able to pay bus fares/childcare costs/room hire/broadband dongles/etc for the hardest to reach people, who will otherwise remain excluded, no matter how many Tweets you send them.

Hope this is helpful

Mark