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The teen site Bebo has been named "best social networking site" [http://tinyurl.com/2ccorm] beating the big boys Facebook and MySpace. Bebo which is used mainly by 13-24 year-olds came out best in a Computing Which? survey of usability, features and security.

Oh it's difficult this new media thing. Just when you get a handle on Blogging you have to start 'social networking' and just when you get your Facebook page the way you want it someone comes along and tells you you need to be on Bebo.

One way to try to keep up is to try to be everywhere. I'm not a great believer in organisations having presences in these spaces - I think people have better voices than organisations. But you could try to get your particular voice and passions out in all these spaces. There are a couple of problems with this. The first of course is times and resources. But there is another. You have more chance of sounding like a real and passionate human if you are committed to a community. If you're trying to be a Facebook player and a MySpace jockey and a Bebo bopper (or whatever the term is), you're going to find it difficult to fit in with the subtly different discourses on those playgrounds.

I'm a great fan of getting others to play in those spaces for you. Why try and sound like a 13-24 year-old on Bebo when there are 13-24 year-olds who'll do it better. Help your supporters, their kids and their mates be your presences in these rapidly shifting spaces. Computing Which? may think Bebo's where it's at but you can bet your friends list that the kidz know better.

But we could take this further. Maybe those young people we are encouraging and enabling to be our cause/campaign's voices could be our eyes and ears as well as mouths. What if we could find ways that they could feed back into our planning the thoughts, ideas, concerns and passions of their communities. They could also help us understand how to talk in these spaces: the discourses and language they use They're out there playing maybe they could tell us what it's like when they come in for tea.

But let's take this to the next stage. What if we pooled this intelligence. Of course we could and should pool our experience of playing in social networking spaces - feel free to add your own here. But we could also share that knowledge we get from our 'cause ambassadors'. If your young people (or even your own son) let's you know that there's a Bebo buzz about Barack Obama's stance on climate change or the volunteer in your office (or your daughter) drops in that Facebook etiquette says your 'Wall posts' are short and active... let the rest of us know. It might lead to some new conversations or at least stop us looking silly.

As a start why not ask the first 13-24 year-old you come across which social networking site is the place to be for them and then for you. And then ask them for a tip on how to play there... post the responses here.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

Great post Paul, you raise some interesting points. Instead of trying to be all things to all people it can be quite easy to enlist the support of some willing teenagers (or older people for that matter!).
Volunteering England have a scheme to do just this in February, see more about this and other digging i've done on my blog at http://watfordgap.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/dad-in-a-hoodie-not/.

Paul Webster
Regional ICT Champions Support
NAVCA
The Tower, 2 Furnival Square
Sheffield
S1 4QL

ICT Resources for the Voluntary and Community Sector

And the great thing is, they're everywhere these IT-literate-LiveWeb-savvy-mashup artists. You don't have to go find them at the Mall, just ask your own kids. Failing that talk to a Media/Citizenship teacher - they'd be more than happy to have a project for their kids to work on. Keep in touch re the Feb project.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

BTW - love the fact you're a 'guru' and I'm a 'newbie'!

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

Great post Paul, lots of inspiring and exciting points. Lets hope some orgs can see the value and perspective of taking it wider and getting different ears and eyes involved.

Laura Whitehead

Popokatea
Blog: http://laura.popokatea.co.uk

... ears, eyes and particularly 'voices' Laura... In my experience the real challenge is allowing other voices to join in the marketing chorus (ugh). Open Source wikitalking (cf Wikinomics) is a big step.

But I think the organisations that embrace the Wiki logic and make communications everyon's job will be the ones that shine.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

Which Paul ?!?
Aw its all good !

Had this discussion with a couple of people at NAVCA today. I guess you both see it too but there are people struggling to use Web 1.0 so why (how?) can the possibly expect to join us up here in our conversations.

I've heard VCS groups say "I get 100 emails a day, I can't do my real job", errr hello! - perhaps your real job has developed / evolved into it being about having email / web / twitter conversations... its you that hasn't moved on.... harsh ?!?!

OK I know there is a lot more to it ... trusting staff to blog, controlling the message etc etc.

I don't see the 4.5 minutes its taken to type this as being an "intrusion" to my day, its a compliment to it.

Paul Webster
Regional ICT Champions Support
NAVCA
The Tower, 2 Furnival Square
Sheffield
S1 4QL

ICT Resources for the Voluntary and Community Sector

Paul (W!) yes, another good point, communications and the way we connect has moved on, and I still get frustrated when people don't or won't. Saying that though, modern media isn't relevant to all groups, and I am careful not to evangalise to those that it wouldn't necessarily relate to or to provide any meaningful benefit. It pends on their mission and what they need to do to achieve it. But as with anything, we should keep an open mind to the other ways that people connect. The young adults and Bebo have been cited here as an example, and we must keep aware that they will be the future of our sector, be it supporters, users, volunteers or workers. Just good to keep the future here in the present too. As you know (!) I use a variety of methods and media to discuss and connect with others, all have their place and being. Trying to keep up with it all is another thing though!
(need to sign off and reply to a tweet now!)

Laura

Yeh completely take that... but I'm hard pressed to see an organisation/campaign/group that this isn't relevant to. If the Meeja are playing, the kids are playing, the policy makers are playing, the funders and donors are out there... Can they afford not to be.

More importantly, I'm a great believe that an open source approach saves money and time.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

In terms of:

"why (how?) can the possibly expect to join us up here in our conversations. "

Isn't that the point of the new connected Web? Don't join us, have conversations wherever and whenever and let the magic of tags link them together. If all the organisations working with older people adopted a common tag then all their conversations, stories and relationships could be pulled together whether from Web 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0. They could then filter that 'content' so they only get what is relevant and usable. Similarly any potential supporter could find everything they needed aggregated together. It's like the ols Web 1.0 idea of a portal but bottom up.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

I agree Paul (C), it should be relevant to all and I personally believe it is for survival long-term, but I know where I am in a rural area, many orgs are still just getting to grips with the basics, partly due to capacity and partly to that's just the way it is for them then and now. Now, if they had an enthused champion join them as a volunteer, supporter, fundraiser etc etc, who also was into what we're talking about, things change. Radically and quickly. (I've experienced this with the most unikely groups down here - it's great to see how quick they evolve).

All I can do in my role, is let them know its out there and keep on driving the message by doing what I do (openly!) and being aware of the right moment to support them to make a change when they are ready.
I think that over the next year or so, we will see a big shift in take up, when more orgs will realise the ease and convenience of it all can make such a profound difference to their work and the benefits it can bring with very little investment needed.

Laura

yes yes yes - totally agree with you, but its getting that shift to take place.

the meeja are playing, the funders are playing, we are playing, but the small charity with a couple of PCs and a dog can't play because they have a box, but the instructions don't match with the pieces or the picture (and there is one missing!). they want to play but they can only play between 2pm and 5pm (on a tuesday and a thursday), they want to play but someone keeps taking the dice and hiding it (or selling time using it and they can't afford to pay that), they want to play because they can see us all having fun but their parents look at how the game was in 1993 (they had a bad experience with t'internet back then) and they won't let them adapt to change, they want to play but you can get hurt or a virus or ... or ... it goes on.

this is why you, me, laura, all the other people in the hub, circuit riders etc etc are running around day in day out saying play with us, we'll explain the rules, sit alongside you as you play for the first time, keep coming back to check you understand .... and I KNOW it IS working !

... until someone takes the ball away!

Paul Webster
Regional ICT Champions Support
NAVCA
The Tower, 2 Furnival Square
Sheffield
S1 4QL

ICT Resources for the Voluntary and Community Sector

Totally agree with what you say there, although the 'champion' example wasn't me in a few cases. One example, literally a bright young thing who happened to join as a volunteer for other tasks with a local conservation org, but into 'web 2.0' at home to connect with his like minded friends. Saw the benefit of helping this org with some of his top tips, and now it's transformed the way they work, communicate and importantly fundraise. New audiences, new voices, new avenues of essential funding to support their work.

All well and good when it works, it can and does...well... mostly...if not..then as circuit riders we come and pick up the pieces if their volunteer/they got it all wrong!!!

Laura

I think that's why we need simple, small, fun starting points. There's no point throwing the whole of Wikonomics, Naked Conversations and the Cluetrain at people let alone a whole set of URLs. If we could just get people Twittering (yeh I know, my favourite thing of the mo). Microblogging their stories and short tips. Just SMS messages - no big techie deal. Coffee queue. Meeting. Buss. Connect them and let the Network effect works its wonders.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale

Along these lines... I watched a short clip about 'Media Snackers' the other day as part of a presentation which was in Welsh at the E-Democracy conference held by Ofcom and the Welsh Assembly. Yes I know I'm not meant to talk about Wales on this forum but bear with me.

The main idea of Media Snackers is that young people are as we know, fickle media consumers into everything at the same time, 2-way comms, media-savvy and web-literate. Creating as well as consuming content.

The conference itself was to identify ways to engage people across all demographics in politics, in issues and in their communities. It was attended by a groups of school children as well as us grown-ups, ranging from politicians to charities to policy-makers. What interested me was that in the same way as you are pointing out we al need to be able to 'play' together online, the conference was attended by someone with downs syndrome instead of someone representing their needs, and children instead of a young person's charity.

As we grown-ups need to know how to use the technology, these kind of conferences also need to be accessible to young people and other members of the target-audience, not just policy-makers. And good on Ofcom and the Assembly for making this possible. Unfortunately some of the content was not as compelling as it could have been in order to capture the young people's attention and they are trouped out half way through. But the idea was spot on and should be seen more often where possible both on and offline.

Worth checking out http://mediasnackers.com/intro/

also see: http://www.mediatrust.org/youth-media/docs/COMM_GUIDE-1.pdf



Edited 3 times. Last edit at 04/02/08 11:09 by HelenBeckett.

PS - I am also amused to see that I am neither a 'guru' nor a 'newbie'... I am apparently an 'accidental tecchie' that's interesting! Also I am quite scared that my post is accompanied by details of who my broadband provider is. Good thing I'm not trying to steal someone else's broadband connection eh!

(Ps as an accidental tecchie I would like to reccomend, if in doubt, turning it off and turning it on again, if that doesn't work then call the guru!)

It's not logging your ISP (Broadband provider). It's noting your IP address which is the numerical address that your ISP gives to each of its users. Sometimes these remain the same, sometimes they change. All websites for instance have IP addresses. They remain static so that when people type in theinternationale.org, all the computers around the world know to go to a particular IP address. Similarly when I post this, the ICTHub's servers note which address the computer that posted it was.

paul caplan
working with the Media Trust: http://www.mediatrust.org

Blogging at: http://www.theinternationale.org
Twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/internationale