Online Community and Public Policy

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For those interested in public policy, online communities and technology an potentially very interesting role has opened up at CIGI.

The position is located in Waterloo Ontario and the deadline for applying is January 14 2008

If you are interested, check out the official posting.

Community Project Manager

The Community Project Manager (CPM) is responsible for leading and coordinating all aspects of project management with respect to one or more IGLOO online communities. The CPM collaborates with all internal IGLOO teams and relevant CIGI departments to ensure efficient, effective and successful projects. The CPM is the key manager of the community development process with external partners.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Build online communities – facilitate the development of online communities according to the partner needs; coordinate internal resources to facilitate partner community development
  • Manage community relationships – build and maintain productive relationships with stakeholders
  • Grow online communities – strategic planning with partners to ensure community sustainability, as well as continually matching partner community needs with IGLOO resources

Additional Responsibilities:

  • Establish and communicate project work plans, budgets, schedule, controls and reporting
  • Collaboratively develop strategic plans with online community clients that include project conceptualization, definition and outcomes, project infrastructure and project implementation plans
  • Provide effective direction to multi-disciplinary teams to accomplish project tasks & goals
  • Communicate with partners regularly (email, telephone & face-to-face meetings) to ensure healthy working relationships
  • Research, evaluate and develop resources for community building
  • Ensure partner needs are met through the development of new tools, features or services for online communities
  • Manage project schedule, budgets and resources
  • Monitor project performance and quality control to ensure partner expectations and goals are met
  • Document project contracts, necessary records and files, planning documents and estimates
  • Coordinate partner contracts, agreements, invoicing and storage of all documentation

Knowledge, skills and abilities required:

  • Understanding of knowledge networks, online knowledge sharing and social networking technologies
  • Excellent organizational and time management skills
  • Exceptional written and verbal communication in English with sound presentation and public speaking skills; other languages are a significant asset
  • Strong networking capabilities with all levels of staff
  • Ability to manage both process and task project requirements
  • Sound judgment and decision making skills
  • Creative analytical and strategic thinking capacities
  • Working knowledge of marketing and communications
  • Must be comfortable using MS Office and internet computer applications

Qualifications:

  • A university degree in political science, economics, history, communications, social sciences or international development is required
  • 2 – 5 years recent, related or practical experience in project management is required
  • Formal project management training is an asset
  • Experience with government funded projects is a significant asset

Even the Simpsons mocks print media

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Taylor and I wrote a piece about a 8 months ago called “Missing the Link” about how newspapers don’t understand the internet.  We’ve shipped it around and had it read by people at the Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times, the Globe, Wired among other places and the feedback has been really positive… but no one will publish it. Seems like the print media isn’t interested in talking about how it is failing to understand and address the biggest threat to its existence.

So while our piece was fairly interesting 8 months ago it is starting to age. Sad.y this hit home last night while watching the Simpsons with Mike and Dawn last night (sidebar: for the first time in ages – not because I don’t like the Simpsons but because I invariably watch “TV” on my computer these days).

The scene opens up with Dan Rather introducing the media panel at the Democratic Party Debate in Springfield (being held in Springfield, and before New Hampshire, for reasons not worth getting into here).

Simpsons Media Death 1

Dan Rather (in an upbeat voice): With me here to comment on today’s democratic debate is Andrea Crowley of CNN, Demonte Evans of Slate Magazine and… (dropping to a semi-derogatory voice) Ron Lahar of the Washington Post.

Simpsons Media Death 2

Nelson pops up

Nelson: Hah Hah, your medium is dying.

Principal Skinner: Nelson…!

Nelson: But it is!

Principal: There’s being right and then there’s being nice.

Ouch. you know things are bad when even the Simpsons are making fun of you. It means your (impending) death has permeated the popular culture.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #1

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This is, quite possibly, my best moment of 2007. I’ve been promising some friends that I’d blog about it for quite some time – so here we go.

PART 1:

Khale v GonzalesBack in January, Lawrence Lessig – a man whose speeches and books: changed the way I see the world; got me excited about and engaged in open source; inspired me to start fighting for the internet; helped instigate my blog; pulls me (at times) towards law school; and regularly makes me want to move to San Francisco a be part of what is one of the most exciting community in the world – wrote this post.

The post essentially discusses two things. The first half reviews and assesses the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (or the Ninth Circuit for those who know their courts) decision on a copyright case called Kahle vs. Gonzales (broadly themed around the issue of Free Culture that Lessig has championed). The court ruled against Lessig and his team so he dissects their response. In the post’s second part Lessig diagnoses that his argument might have been better expressed visually. He then outlines a model, and a graph, he developed to do just this. Most importantly, he posts the basic spreadsheet on his blog and states:

Again, this is a beta model. I’d be very grateful for any errors identified, or for a better specification of the same. After a review by a couple friends, I will post any corrections to this. At that time, I’ll also include any corrections noted in the comments.

I would do virtually anything to help Lessig and the important work he, and others like him, are doing. Sadly, lacking a legal background I’m not sure how much help I would be in drafting an improved Supreme Court petition (I would probably just waste his time and actually do the cause more damage than good). Designing a better graph however, that is something I can do.

Consequently, I posted a comment on Lessig’s blog where I re-graphed his results but displayed them in a visual manner that I thought made it easier to convey his argument. You can see my comment, along with the reasoning and the new model, here. I of course also shared the model so that others could improve on it.

The best part was Lessig wrote me an email me and thanked me for the help. Words can’t convey how much I’ve wanted to help with this movement/cause. So getting a thank you email meant the world to me. In this space (and virtually every space) I’m a nobody – some guy on the other end of a wire – but I love living in a world where even I can spend a few hours (a lot of hours actually) working on something and do well enough that I can help an expert and leader of a movement I feel so much passion for. I still feel ill-equipped to help out, but that thank you email made me feel like that my small contribution was genuinely helpful. For both those who know me, and those who don’t, it may sound pathetic, but I really couldn’t stop smiling for days.

And then it got better.

Part 2:

One of the nicest people in the world – Virginia Law School professor Chris Sprigman emailed me out of the blue with a note that said:

Hello David.  Larry sent me the message you sent to him, and I’ve been puzzling through your graph.  I’m drafting a petition for rehearing in Kahle, and I’d like to speak with you and understand your methodology, in the hope that we might use your graph in the brief.  Do you have any time to speak later today?

We chatted and I went through a couple of iterations of my graph. And then at some point he asked: Would you be willing to do all the graphs for our Supreme Court petition?

Obviously, I agreed.

So you can see the petition here. Sadly, my original graph that got me involved didn’t make the cut. I don’t make any claims that my work was at all intellectual – I was making graphs. But I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier then the hours I spent tweaking things here and there to see if there was something – anything – I could do to help make this small part of a Supreme Court petition better.

So there it is, number one – for the simple reason that blogs and the internet can allow anyone, anywhere, to contribute to something they believe in. I’ve never met Chris or Larry and they didn’t know me from anyone, but the internet’s meritocratic culture meant that if they thought I could contribute – it didn’t matter – they’d bring me on. And for that I’m eternally gratefully, and will also be eternally willing to work my butt off for them and for the cause of free culture.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #2

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My #2 moment has everything to do with the highs and lows of blogging…

Back on May 11th I wrote this post about a major anti-abortion rally where the rally organizers main banners had the Government of Canada trademark logo on them. My post was fairly apolitical – I considered it merely interesting that the banners were using the logo (which requires Treasury Board’s consent) and so wondering if the Government was either directly funding or endorsing the march (5 Conservative Ministers did participate in the rally).

Several anti-abortion sites started linking to my site and numerous comments were posted outlining the legality of the logo’s use (thank you Tina P.) As a result of the growing online debate the Canadian Press wrote a story about it which the Globe and Mail picked up on and published. This in turn caused Treasury Board  to launch an investigation into the use of the logo which has so far resulted in the Campaign Life Coalition having to put the banners in the closet.

So the cool part about this story is that a humble blog post can end up being picked up the blogosphere, and then by a newswire, which can then land the story in the national newspaper. Hardly a new event, but cool when you are the instigator.

But here is the frustrating part. The Canadian Press story and the Globe and Mail story (now hidden by the G&M’s silly firewall) both reference anonymous “bloggers” in their stories. The Globe and Mail ran this version:

A photo of the banner has been circulating on the Internet since last week, with bloggers using it to suggest that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories appeared to be funding anti-abortion groups when they’ve cut funding for women’s equality programs.

In this version bloggers are made to be part of the story, not its source. While some bloggers were part of the story it was a blogger who picked up the story. If what I’d written had been on the Vancouver Sun’s webpage then journalism etiquette would have dictated that the Globe reference the source. Somehow however, when a blogger is the source, this etiquette goes out the window. One can’t help but infer that this choice springs from traditional media’s contempt for new media in general and bloggers in particular.

So the cool part – the post generated some interesting press.

The uncool part – Canada’s traditional media still doesn’t understand the internet. While they accuse bloggers of being leechers of their content – they do the reverse as well, leeching ideas and discoveries of those who blog without referencing the source. At least (good) bloggers hyperlink to the articles and sources in their posts.

However, for both reasons it was a cool moment for me in blogging – a window into the problems and opportunities of new media in an old media world – which is why it makes number 2 on the list.

My "top 10" 2007 blogging moments: #3

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I’m invited to the June 2007 Executive Summit conference in Montebello to give a keynote on Gen X, Gen Y, Web 2.0 and the challenges of public service sector renewal. This is where Treasury Board gathers the CIO’s and other key IT people from across government.

After my presentation I end up in discussions with various friendly and engaging public servants. During one conversation a senior public servant challenges the notion that any government service – especially critical ones – could ever adopt the principles or ideas used by open source, or even Web 2.0 technologies. After all, he notes, we can’t rely on people, that’s why they pay taxes, so they can rely on government. This subject being a passion of mine we end up in a mini-debate during which he demands an example of an open system presently being used by government.

I ask him for a few hours and promise to blog my response.

Turns out one of the the most critical systems of our infrastructure – one that citizens expect to protect and save them from a variety of problems on a daily basis – is almost entirely dependent on a open system to deploy and allocate its resources with pinpoint accuracy. Is the entire system open source? No. But a critical component is. (Hint, it’s probably the one phone number we all know).

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #4

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July of 2007 – the 10th anniversary of blogging comes and goes and no one in the Canadian media notices. Of course given that the traditional media spent as much of 1994 to mid-2007 as they could ignoring the internet, this should surprise no one.

So Taylor and I take matters into our own hands and publish this opinion piece in the Toronto Star where we try to reign in technophiles’ overhyped promise of a coming blogosphere instigated social media utopia while at the same time hammering at the Andrew Keen like technophobes who see only doom and gloom.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #5

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I commit in the autumn to write posts 4 out of every 5 business days and succeed more weeks than not.

So why make this a top 10 blogging moment?

Well, I made the commitment in part because I was (re)inspired by this great story told by Brad Isaac about his brief encounter with Jerry Seinfeld. While I encourage everyone to check out the link the most relevant part is this:

I (Brad) had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don’t feel like it.

Anyone reading this blog will know that the most humourous things found in my posts tend to be my gaffs and typos. However, the Seinfeld story resonates with me and, from time to time, it is important I remember why I started this forum: to improve my writing and encourage a community of peers to push me on my thinking. It’s why, long before I’d read the Seinfeld, I subtitled this blog – “If writing is a muscle, this is my gym.”

The simple fact is, I find writing hard. But this blog – and its readers – give me motivation to write something almost every day. Often this may mean it’s 2am before I’m finally logging into wordpress to bang out a post – but the internal drive and the external expectations (real or imagined) I suspect some loyal readers have is, I believe, making me a better writer.

So, with that said, I’m a) saying thank you to anyone who’s ever emailed me or commented on my blog; and b) I’m getting back to my roots. I’m resurrecting my blog’s old tag line.

Writing is a muscle. And this is my gym.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #6

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This could simply be about why I love the internet. And again (shocker) it is about the community.

More specifically, it is about the encouragement.

Sometime is it positive: like when David H. encouraged me to finish this top ten list in time.

Sometimes is it, more on the constructive side: like when David H. justly outed me as the only speaker to have not given him a title and abstract for my FSOSS talk. :)

But generally, when you start writing and putting yourself out there others chip in. Sometimes it’s to provide encouragement, and sometimes to provide a more critical assessment of your thinking or writing. Either way, my ideas, my thinking and my work has all been strengthened by both the brilliant and inane thoughts that have come to me via comments and emails on this blog.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #7

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What a lot of anti-bloggers and technophobes don’t understand is that blogging becomes fun because of the sense of community it cultivates. People end up reading, linking and sharing blogs for all sorts of reasons: they find common cause, interests or values or maybe they think someone is smart, or fun or insightful. In short, a blog can lead people to connect, enabling them to exchange ideas and/or just get to know one another. Whatever David Suzuki may say, this is a real community.

Better still. while sometimes this community is online (more on that later), sometimes it transcends into real life. I’ve made this easier by posting my physical location in the right hand column of my blog (a hack I’m pretty proud of) (For those interested, I also use dopplr). Often friends refer to this to find out if and when I’ll be in town. A highlight reel moment though was when fellow blogger, ex-pat Canadian and open source fan Harley Young – who’s emailed me about some of my work and whose blog I visit – noticed we we’re both in Chicago and suggested we grab dinner. How 21st century…

While I started to blog in order to practice writing, probably the biggest unforseen benefit has been all the people its enabled me to meet – virtually and in reality.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #8

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Since it’s the holidays and everybody’s too busy shopping and seeing friends to read blogs – my meta posts will continue! Always nice to take stock.

Blogging moment number 8…

After reading a Globe and Mail report in which Harper mocks the Liberals for caring “too much” about the welfare of imprisoned Taliban insurgents I threw the paper down in disgust and banged out this blog post in literally 15 minutes. Four days later, the Star agreed to publish it as an opinion piece.

Here is the cool part:

For the first time in my life, something I wrote as a blog post gets published as opposed to something I published getting cross posted to my blog.

“If writing is a muscle, this is my gym.”