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#NetCulture”: Stories of Culture and Diversity in Social Media (April 5th)

Raul — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:21:20 +0000

Despite the fact that I teach at the university level in English, that I live my every day life in English, and that I write a (somewhat popular) blog in English, my native language is Spanish (I do speak other 5 though). I’m an immigrant to Canada, and by all measures, I’m part of the rich and diverse ethnic mosaic that makes Canada what it is now.

A few months ago, we hosted the organizers of Coop Culture (and of #NetCulture) at The Network Hub in their inaugural meetings. On April 5th, #NetCulture: Stories of Culture and Diversity in Social Media takes place. The organizers have assembled a great line-up of local speakers from Vancouver’s diverse ethnic communities to share how they use social media tools like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to explore and define their cultural identities.

I’m thrilled to see that many of the #NetCulture speakers are also immigrants to Canada (and many of them are friends of mine) —including LatinCouver.ca’s Paola V. Murillo and Norma Ibarra, my friends Jay Catalan (cofounder of The Network Hub) and Rafael Aquino, DDB Canada’s Veronica Heringer and Ajay Puri’s own father, Ashok Puri (AKA Papa Puri).

So why #NETCULTURE: Stories of Culture and Diversity in Social Media?

Stories connect us to each other, our cultures, and the world. Come and hear from inspiring local speakers reflecting our culturally diverse communities who will show how social media has helped them strengthen their identities, roots and friendships. How can Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other tools help you do the same? Ask the speakers in this interactive session. Afterwards, meet community leaders and social media activists at the after-party where we can continue the conversation.

MAIN EVENT
The event’s keynote speaker is Kety Esquivel, a well-known advocate for the Latino community and VP of Digital Strategy at Ogilvy Public Relations. She will be joining the event via Skype.

Following a short entertainment break, six sets of local speakers will share their unique, personal stories:

#NetCulture: Stories of Culture and Diversity in Social Media is a free event co-sponsored by the VPL, Net Tuesday Vancouver and Cooperative Culture.

AFTER-PARTY
The after-party will take place after 9PM at the Kingston Tap House in the WREC Room where food and beverages will be available by donation. All proceeds go to support #NetCulture and future events.

EVENT AND REGISTRATION DETAILS

Main Event –  Tuesday, April 5, 2011-  7-9PM –  Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch
Registration link here.

After-Party
 Tuesday, April 5, 2011 –  9PM onwards –  Kingston Taphouse and Grille
Registration link here.

Please note that attendees will need to register separately for the Main Event and the After-Party. I hope many of you will attend because this is a fantastic event worthy of attending. And even more – IT’S FREE.

On the value of dissenting opinions

Raul — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:27:48 +0000

Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.
Jacob Bronowski

I was raised in a family headed by two lawyers. My parents, both educated in the legal world, taught us the value of dissenting opinions. Not the legal notion, per se (which has its own definition), but the idea that, maybe, someone else who had the opposite opinion to us, just maybe, that person’s opinion was actually right (or it had the possibility of being right)

photo credit: Francis Carnaúba

At the family dinner table, we would engage in profound discussions, which ranged from philosophy to science to politics, to our interpersonal relationships. We grew up immersed in a family culture that valued dissent. Nobody was *always* right, nobody was *always* wrong, but there was always room for a “middle-of-the-ground” approach. At the very least, we were able to express our contrary opinions. I would say something that one or more of my brothers might disagree with, and we *always* waited to hear the opposing view.

We waited to make our argument and try to win over (by convincing the person, not by beating it up) because we (my brothers and I) were raised seeing how arguments between lawyers were constructed: by presenting evidence and leaving it to judges to weigh on the evidence presented.

We (all my 4 brothers and I) went on to study various types of engineering and we adopted the scientific method as a rigorous template for our own work. Three of us went on to do PhDs, where the value of argumentation and presenting evidence in a rigorous manner is even more appreciated (as indicated in the quote with which I started my blog entry).

I value dissent, I really do. I appreciate my friends’ dissenting opinions and I appreciate the feedback when they think my view is not the right one. I disagree with people publicly when I don’t agree with them because I think it’s the right thing to do: to create a debate that allows us all to learn. I always offer my criticism in a respectful manner, though.

I worry, however, that social media is harming rather than enhancing our ability to dissent online for three reasons.

photo credit: antwerpenR

First, the online and public nature of dissenting opinions via online tools may lead to recipient(s) not reacting well to the feedback. I am pretty sure nobody likes to be called out publicly (particularly if they’re sensitive and the ‘calling out’ is worded in a negative way). As my parents said, you can get so much more by using honey rather than using vinegar.

Second, the quick, reflexive nature of 140-characters-long responses does not give the recipient enough time to process the message. We fire quick “FAIL” messages with the assumption that the recipient will understand what we mean by that. Which, most of the cases, is not true.

Third, the attention span of people immersed in social media has been greatly reduced, so people love to read quick, witty bits of 140 characters but nothing more. Long blog entries where an argument can be properly outlined and developed are eschewed in favor of long bursts of tweets.

This is something I’ve been reflecting on for a long, long time. As an academic, I’ve been trained to confront dissenting opinions and offer evidence to support my viewpoint. I *enjoy* it when people disagree with me (and of course, I love winning arguments). I worry, however, that the fast-paced, group-mob mentality will overtake our ability to present cogent and articulate arguments that might be dissenting with the majority’s view. And that *is* something to be worried about. Because a society can’t learn without dissent.

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society.
Natan Sharansky

My talk at @BCIT on Social Media, Politics and Public Policy

Raul — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:51:59 +0000

A few weeks ago, my friend Tris Hussey (who is teaching at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, BCIT) invited me to speak to his class on the topic of “Social Media, Politics and Public Policy”. I have previously given similar talks (if you look at my SlideShare space, you can see a few of the Power Point slide decks of recent talks I’ve given).

I spoke to Tris’ class this past March 3rd, 2010. It’s kind of coincidental, because I have previously sought to teach at BCIT (this was before I started teaching at UBC) and I never got any positive feedback/responses. So, for me it was a bit of an irony that I ended up, indeed, teaching at BCIT (guest lecturing, of course, and it’s Tris whom I have to thank for the opportunity).

I’ve given a similar version of this talk previously, but this time it felt more fun as the students were already well engaged in the social networking space. The perspective I took then was more on the political analysis/policy analysis side (which suits me rather well, as those are the topics I teach at UBC). I centered my analysis on issues of publicness vs. privacy, seeking the audience where it is (for example, the Facebook page for Kelowna, British Columbia, is very active). The government of BC is seeking public input for the new water laws through a blog. There’s a broad variety of things already happening in the space, and it’s very exciting.

And, on that note, I submitted a panel to the conference Northern Voice 2010 precisely on this topic. I would copy and paste the abstract, but I prefer to surprise you with the excellent panel I have assembled. I am hoping (fingers crossed) that my panel will be accepted, because it has an excellent group of speakers.

Thanks to everyone who sent me tweets about examples of use of social media in politics and public policy, and to Hans Peter Meyer for sharing a report he created. An earlier post of mine where I asked these questions can be found here.

Leading by doing: Social Signal open-sources their consultancy

Raul — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:37:50 +0000

I had the opportunity to talk to Alex Samuel and Rob Cottingham recently both at Twestival and at the launch party of The Vancouver Observer, and told both of them (separately) that I really look up to them in the field social media. They push the boundaries, challenge the status quo, they challenge themselves and re-invent themselves in this field. I would like to believe that my own work in this field is on par or at least, following on the tracks of these amazing folks, but today’s announcement just left me saying “WOW”.

In a move that promises to shake the way in which social media consulting is done, they’re (slowly but surely) open sourcing their consultancy. Alex and Rob explains in their blog post:

We’re taking the intellectual property we’ve generated and gleaned from Social Signal’s four years of consulting, strategy and development and making it available for free online, under a Creative Commons license.

What are the implications of this for the social media world? Many, I believe. But I would like to point out to the last part of the above sentence. Under a Creative Commons license. That means, that their intellectual property can be (depending on the specific license they choose) reproduced, built-upon, adapted, etc. NOT STOLEN. So, those sneaky evil types who may want to steal Alex and Rob’s acumen may find themselves on the other end of a really nice lawsuit should things go awry (please note that this analysis is mine and only mine, not Alex and Rob’s – knowing them, I am pretty sure that they aren’t the litigious type. I, being the son of two lawyers, on the other hand, very much am, hehe).

What this means is that yes, you may build upon what Alex and Rob have created (in this case, they’re open-sourcing one of their first products, the concept jam). But (a) you would be expected to credit them, (b) you would be expected to link to their posts, most likely (as it happens with any Creative Commons license) and (c) if the license is Share-Alike, you would be expected to share with the community your new concept. So, if you reproduce and adapt the concept jam in a way that grows the initial concept, you may have to share it with the world too.

This has HUGE implications for the community at large, in that the impact is definitely longer-lasting and much more far-reaching. I don’t believe this will reduce the amount of work that Rob and Alex will get, but it will definitely refine the way in which social media is done. Open sourcing their consultancy doesn’t mean that they’re giving their knowledge for free (a topic we debated here on my blog for a long, long time). It means that their knowledge base will help further the social media field.

Even though my leg is still hurting, I’m probably going to go get a bottle of wine and hunt down Alex and Rob and share a glass with them, because frankly, this is a bold, strong, daring, brave, valiant move and one that makes me even prouder of calling them my friends.

Where is the diversity in social media conferences?

Raul — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:02:11 +0000

photo credit: daveynin

I seem to be on a roll in my pot-stirring ways. Not only have I wagged my finger at Alex Samuel for meta-hand-wagging the hand-waggers, but I also asked the question about diversity in social media conferences over at One Degree. Alexa Clark asks why aren’t there more women in conference rosters (I’m going to assume, given that it’s published on One Degree, that we are going to narrow the scope to tech/social media/public relations – we could talk about science and technology too, or medical or environment, but I’ll just make that bold assumption).

I threw in two comments that, more or less, imply that if we were to look for diversity, we need to broaden the conversation beyond gender and include race and sexual orientation, as well as ask why are we inviting the same women to speak all the time. Surely, there is a gender imbalance in many professions and I wouldn’t be surprised that this is the case in the speaking circuit. In my comment, I did note, however, that all the potential speakers I recommended for TEDxVancouver were women, and that the person who has influenced me the most in how good a speaker I want to become is Glenda Watson-Hyatt, a Vancouver-based blogger and consultant on accessibility who has cerebral palsy. My mother has been one of the most influential people in my life and many of my best friends (and most articulate speakers) are women.

But, as very aptly said by Tamera Kremer (and I’m not saying this because she said “this is why I love you, Raul“) –

Diversity actually means diverse voices too. And I also would throw in that while lack of women’s voices is a HUGE issue, we should also be talking about opening the field beyond white/ straight/ physically capable. Let’s define what being truly diverse really means.

Tamera is absolutely right. Why isn’t there a conversation around diversity and what it means both in general for the speakers circuit and for the social media world overall? As usual, have at it on the comments section.

My recent Social Media Club Victoria talk: “Towards an Action-Focused Agenda for Social Change Using Social Media” (#smcvictoria) @smcvictoria

Raul — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:41:59 +0000

I mentioned on my blog a few weeks back that Catherine Novak had kindly invited me to speak to the audience at the Social Media Club Victoria’s monthly gathering. I was more than delighted. It was such a great experience. Very good for my soul, provided me a chance to feel renewed and recharged. Thanks to Greg and Pat Aspa who were my kind hosts overnight, and to everyone I met there. I really should come back soon. In the mean time, for those interested in knowing what I spoke about, here is my (Creative Commons licensed – Non-Commercial, Non-Derivative, Share-Alike) slide deck. I don’t have the time to publish a crib of my talk, may do that sometime soon, but not now. Enjoy! Comments always welcome, of course.

Towards an Action-Focused Agenda for Social Change Using Social Media

View more OpenOffice presentations from raulpachecov.

On being jaded with social media for social change

Raul — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:35:42 +0000

This post/comment may sound ranty. You’ve been warned

Joe Solomon (@engagejoe) is one of the very few “social media for social change” people I trust the most. Joe and I may butt heads on our approaches to how we focus our work in harnessing the power of social media to effect change, but we certainly agree on one thing: there’s a lot of promise for the social networking tools in effecting positive social change.

This is my response to Joe’s questions on his NetSquared post:

* Are you jaded about social media for change? How come; what happened? How does this affect your work?
* How can we address this and move from being unmotived to being on a more even (if not excited) keel?
* What are your reactions to some of the questions, feelings, suggestions folks shared above?

My responses below:

Thanks for this post, Joe, and for everyone who chimed in beforehand. As I said, I’m better at reacting at things (this comes from my academic training – I’m an analyst of issues and problems, and then I propose solutions). I can only speak from my two organizational experiences (VanChangeCamp very marginally, as I am no longer really involved and MentalHealthCamp).

Early on, Isabella Mori and I decided that we would be the only organizers instead of setting up a committee. This worked in our favor as we are hive minds. We think so much alike it’s unbelievable. We thought out and created a framework of collaboration within which participants of Mental Health Camp would work (presenters, volunteers, organizers). I think much of the success of MHC Vancouver was that we created a framework for openness, discussion, respect for people who shared their stories and the underlying desire to break down the stigma of mental illness and THEN we used social media tools to expand our reach and talk to potential attendees, speakers, etc.

I am sharing these findings because those respond to the last point you made – can we find a target and THEN apply a social media toolkit to it? My answer is – Yes, we can. That’s I think how we ended up being so successful. The participants were engaged, but they were engaged within a framework of mutual respect, love, warmth and sharing. If you were attending MHC you knew what you were going to be in for. You knew that you would be hearing other people’s stories of struggling with mental illness and you needed to be open minded, and be respectful and sensitive to these stories, and react in ways that would empower those who shared their stories. I was amazed at the quality of participants and speakers, and truly honored that they shared in this effort.

The question you ask – ARE WE JADED FROM SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SOCIAL CHANGE? has a good answer that nobody is willing to give – yes, we are, but we aren’t being honest. We all want support for our event, yet we are reluctant or wary to support others events. What happened to “do unto others as you’d like to have done unto you”?. Many people from whom I expected at least a retweet did NOT support my efforts with Mental Health Camp. Many people from the actual social media for social change community, in fact. How does that make me feel? Jaded.

The fact of the matter is – our best bet for the use of social media for social change, in my opinion, is to be honest, respectful and forthcoming in what we expect from our application of online tools to effecting social change. In my view, Mental Health Camp was hugely successful, and there were many reasons why it was, but much of that was the support from the online community (please note that I said the community and not EVERYONE in the community).

I also think that it is important to be selective, strategic and focused in how we approach social media for social change. You can’t be everybody’s hero. Choose one or two projects. Go small and then scale up and go viral. And more importantly, remember the rule of RECIPROCITY. If you want support on your project, make sure that you’ve supported other projects. I had a really bad experience supporting a social media for social change initiative and then asking for support and not even getting a reply tweet back. Not the best way to get me to support this person’s next event, right?

I had also mentioned to Joe that I react very badly to pressure, and I have a policy of being selective. I choose carefully which projects I support but when I support them, I’m fully behind them. I don’t like being pressured into anything, and I’m sure many people feel the same way I do but don’t publicly disclose this. Gentle nudging and negotiation always wins (at least with me!)

One of the biggest challenges and people fail to realize this is – there are SO MANY PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD. It’s hard to get support from everyone. I think Beth Kanter asked in a post how to deal with so many causes (a while ago). One of the best ways, I think, is to re-direct. If you can’t help support a cause, why not get a friend (online or offline) involved? I didn’t know anyone in the mental health community, and now I do thanks to people who were in the MH community who introduced me to other people. Isabella and I got a lot of support from people who weren’t even online!

Overall, my bottom line is – let’s look at problems, create a framework to solve them and then engage the social media toolkit. Within that social media tool kit we should never forget to treat everyone in the social media for social change community with respect and interest. Otherwise, the likelihood that people will react favorably to our initiatives will be very small.
My 2 cents.

The Gastown Dialogues on the Future of the Web (Inaugural Session)

Raul — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:12:15 +0000

Last week, Kevin Grandia and Evan Leeson invited me along with a few other bright minds from various walks of life, all of them with an interest in the future of the web to an intimate, in-camera roundtable discussion on what we could expect in the next few years as the Internet evolves, technology advances and we become increasingly connected in a multitude of ways.

The participants of the first Gastown Dialogue on The Future of the Web were:

Evan Leeson (whose amazing new Gastown digs were the venue) President of Catalyst Internet
Trevor Junck, Junxion Strategies
Jacqueline Voci, Soya Marketing
Mitchell Anderson, science writer and the proud owner of www.freakyweather.com
Julie Morgan, longtime blogger and socialite
Raul Pacheco-Vega, researcher: http://www.raulpacheco.org/ and super-blogger
And Kevin Grandia, managing editor DeSmogBlog and New Media Director for Hoggan and Associates

Credit: Rob Cottingham

What are the Gastown Dialogues on the Future of the Web? Here, let me give you some information from Kevin Grandia’s email to all of us. I’ve edited some bits and pieces but you get the gist.

The Gastown Dialogues will be a once-a-month small (8 people max.) intense (2 hours, 2 topics) roundtable discussion (with wine and beer) with a mix of new media users and practitioners from professionals to casual users and people just starting out. The idea is not to have a 2 hour “hey look at how smart and cool I am” rap session. Instead this is an opportunity to share knowledge, create new ideas and network with like-minded people.

The roundtable will be recorded (bring your camera if you want, we have 2, but the more the merrier) and we will create a vidcast on a Gastown Dialogue YouTube channel, thus making it available for everyone to share and spur further conversation and ideas within their own networks.

While I do expect a fuller post to emerge from Kevin and Evan, I will share one of the interesting questions we discussed:

Topic 1: We’ve all heard by now and started to see what will be “Hot in 2009″ in new media, so that’s said and done. But what will be “Hot in 2010″ in new media? Will the semantic web finally come of age, will Facebook still be the behemoth, will blogging the written word be killed by video? What about mobile tech?

Jabu Bags – an empowerment project

Raul — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:45:42 +0000

Credit: Jabu Bags

The power of social media for social change is amazing, I believe. I was live-bloggging NetTuesday the other day and had a chance to meet Megan Yarema, who leads the project Jabu Bags. What is Jabu Bags? In their own words, their mission is:

To assist rural women in Swaziland with poverty alleviation through employment and skill sharing in the art of sewing, and encourage empowerment through financial independence and training. We also look to ease the strain of HIV/AIDS related issues facing families in this process by providing job opportunities close to home and promoting awareness in the communities.

Personally, I find this project really interesting. Their webpage on Give Meaning can be found on this link, and if you want to purchase a bag, I’d suggest contacting Megan directly (her email is on the website).

Public policy, budget prioritization and the money question

Raul — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:12:48 +0000

Nancy tweeted a Money Question this afternoon on whether we disagree with sports figures earning as much money as they do when there is so much poverty and disadvantaged people struggling to get by.

Daily Money Q to ponder: Are we OK with sports figures earning the salaries they do, while other citizens are in desperate circumstances?

It is RARE that I get asked questions that make my blood boil and that’s perhaps one of them (not because Nancy asked it – Nancy is a very dear friend of mine – it’s because I rarely think about this issue, and when I do, I always get upset).

When I teach Public Policy (both at the undergraduate and graduate level), I always have a lecture on fairness, equity and justice. These are always important topics for decision-makers in designing public policies. Why? Because, with a limited amount of resources you have to do a gazillion things. So you (as a policy maker) need to prioritize. What can I do with these resources and how can I best put them to good use to serve the public interest? What is fair and equitable and just? Is it fair that these sports figures (or politicians) are paid THAT much?

I always ask my students (and whomever listens to me, whenever I give a keynote or an invited talk) to think about issues in terms of trade-offs. If I spend X thousands of dollars on implementing Y policy, then I get Z results (in terms of people taken off the streets, or streets paved, or seats funded for post-secondary education, or litres of water treated). But since resources are scarce, I have to spend them on Y policy instead of W policy, then I am trading off something. I am giving resources to a cause and NOT to another. There’s a zero sum game, where some win, some lose.

For example, think about it this way – if instead of paying multi-million dollar salaries to sports figures (or politicians), you could spend all that money in something else.

Let me give you the figure I used as an example for Nancy (as listed below)

hummingbird604 I do have a firm opinion – it’s stupid. With 1 month Mexican soccer team’s salaries I’d pay 5 years of PhD ed for 100 pple

This time, I’ll do the exercise with the actual salaries I knew of. The office of the wife of the former President of Mexico was spending about $ 300,000 dollars per month (at the time I did this calculation – right now, said office does not exist as far as I know). What would you do with $ 300,000 dollars? Well, I can tell you one thing – given the monthly allowance that Mexican granting councils gave to PhD students at the time (I was doing my PhD then), you could fund the monthly allowance of 300 PhD students with the money this otherwise useless office used. 300. PhD-level, smart, intelligent people. Per month.

Think about it, people. What do you say is the best use of your money? Educating 300 people with PhDs or ensuring that the wife of the President has a nice office and staff for her ‘charity’ work? Whenever I reflect on it, I am always reminded of what my Dad used to tell me – “for the Romans, bread and circuses“. I have the same opinion of high salaries for sports figures.

Now, feel free to let your thoughts pour here

HappyFrog.ca merges with 3rdWhale!

Raul — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:48:11 +0000

I recently learned about the recent merger of HappyFrog.ca with 3rdWhale from my good friend DaveO, but I hadn’t had a chance to write about it, as I’d been really overwhelmed with work. HappyFrog.ca was founded by Ron Williams as an all-encompassing directory-social networking resource for green businesses in British Columbia. The platform in and of itself is fun, and handy.

I have been a proud member of the FrogSquadders (I covered EPIC 2008 for them along with a great line up of local bloggers). I frequently guest-post in HappyFrog’s FrogBlog and they have given me great exposure in their newsletter as well. Funny how everything is connected in this world, I do know of the work of Boyd Cohen, the force behind 3rdWhale (although, surprisingly, I’ve never met him in person despite the fact that we both live within the Metro Vancouver area!)

I look forward to learning more about what 3rdWhale and HappyFrog.ca merged can do combined! One improvement that 3rdWhale’s page desperately needs is an “About Us” page. I am pretty sure that everyone wants to know more about how they came about and what they’re up to!

3rdWhale recently organized a PodMob (which I also promoted on Twitter), although truth be told, at some points I was overwhelmed with so much writing and talking about the podmob. The success of the podmob at Sushi Bento on Robson Street is in no small part due to the enthusiasm and positive energy of the people behind 3rdWhale, and I believe primarily it was Emily Jubenvill, who is “The Greenest Person in Canada”.

It’s great to learn about these new developments! Congratulations to HappyFrog.ca and 3rdWhale!

Public policy lessons on homelessness for Vancouver’s next mayor

Raul — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 07:23:35 +0000

Credit: Vlastula on Flickr

Both of the candidates with actually the best shot at actually becoming the next Mayor of Vancouver (Gregor Robertson and Peter Ladner) have participated in debates on (and broadly proclaimed that they’ll work to end) homelessness in Vancouver (you can read a good recap by Tris here). Well, gentlemen, I seriously do hope that whoever wins, will seriously seek some sound advice on public policy, particularly on the issue of homelessness.

I am not an expert in homelessness policy by any means. I am, however, a specialist in environmental studies and public policy, and particularly I’ve researched issues that are clearly the domain of various levels of government. In particular, water governance in Mexico faces many challenges precisely because of this problem – overlapping jurisdictional responsibilities. Homelessness has the same basic structural problem. It should be a shared responsibility, but no actual level of government takes real responsibility and is truly accountable for dealing with homelessness.

In Mexico, wastewater governance and water supply provision, for example, is fully a responsibility of the municipality. That responsibility is enshrined in the Mexican Constitution (Article 115). Unfortunately, municipalities don’t really have a standing in the Canadian political system. Canadian federalism recognizes the Federation and the provinces (and Territories). However, municipalities/cities are not recognized (see Canada’s Cities report) and therefore, the intergovernmental relationships amongst municipalities, the provincial governments and the Federal have become really complicated [EDIT - Found even better sources on the debate on whether municipalities should be granted constitutional status in the site of the Library of the Parliament of Canada and in the Canadian Encylopedia].

This is unfortunate, and it’s a big problem if you think about it, because – who bears the brunt of homeless as a societal issue that needs to be addressed? The municipality. However, how can a municipality address an issue that requires cooperation between provinces, the Federation and the municipality if there is no actual recognized Constitutional status of the city in Canada? (see the sources I’ve included above on the state of the debate in regards to the constitutional status of the municipality/city)

According to Vision Vancouver’s blog, Gregor suggests to “build relationships with all levels of government” as one of the key actions they’ll undertake if elected.

According to Peter Ladner’s blog, Peter suggests that he will tackle homelessness “through a partnership of federal, provincial, regional, municipal governments and non-profit agencies”.

Well, dear candidates in the November 15th municipal election, you will need to not only build relationships and partnerships, but actually establish sound, solid intergovernmental agreements that lead to the implementation at a local (municipal) level of the Federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy. Although, that being said, I think we need a sound National Homelessness Action Strategy.

Homelessness is definitely a regional/municipal public policy issue, but municipalities can’t solve the problem by themselves, without the support of the Federal government. For all candidates, I suggest you coordinate your strategy with the Federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy (launched in December 2006).

Under the HPS, the federal government will offer the provinces and territories the opportunity to enter into bilateral partnerships, improve collaboration and develop linkages between the federal homelessness programs and provincial/territorial social services to help communities make strategic investments that will best serve their homeless populations.[HPS About Us]

I would also recommend investing in solid, evidence-based research on homelessness using a global, multi-country, multi-region comparative strategy. Surely, other countries have reduced homelessness. How did they do it? What did they do? What was needed?

I am sure someone must have done good research on the topic. I haven’t, but if I was a specialist in urban issues (specifically homelessness) rather than an environmental specialist, I probably would launch a research programme with applied outcomes (e.g. partner with the local communities to actually effect change).

I was able to find a good article on homelessness and health (co-authored by, amongst others, Dr. Jim Frankish, whose research I do respect a lot).

Homelessness and Health in Canada: Research Lessons and Priorities
C James Frankish; Stephen W Hwang; Darryl Quantz, Canadian Journal of Public Health; Mar/Apr 2005; 96.

[Link here]

Additional resources – Not a research paper, but Monte Paulsen’s post on The Tyee “Seven Solutions to Homelessness” is a great read.

One last word – whoever wins, please don’t just give us empty promises.

DO THINGS THAT WILL HAVE POSITIVE, LONG-LASTING POSITIVE EFFECTS!

Homelessness Action Week 2008 – October 12th to 19th, 2008

Raul — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:13:20 +0000

Photo Credit: Matthew Good on Flickr

Last week, I mentioned that I was worried about the lack of interest in local/Canadian politics and the excessive focus on the US election on Canadian and Vancouverite blogs and on Twitter. Well, with the news of an upcoming Federal election (October 14th, 2008), I am very, VERY happy to see the interest of our bloggers, readers and Twitterers renewed on Canadian issues

During the same week, I tried to remind my readers that in order for us to really participate, and put the public back into public policy, we need to focus on local issues while maintaining a global perspective. One of those hyperlocal issues that I think we need to focus on is the lack of homes and shelter for homeless people. On a side note, I am not too sure that homelessness will be taken up as a Federal election issue, but who knows.

Even though homelessness is mostly considered a regional, municipal/provincial public policy issue, there is an actual Federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy (launched in December 2006). From their About Us page:

Under the HPS, the federal government will offer the provinces and territories the opportunity to enter into bilateral partnerships, improve collaboration and develop linkages between the federal homelessness programs and provincial/territorial social services to help communities make strategic investments that will best serve their homeless populations.[HPS About Us]

Homeless Action Week will take place EXACTLY during the 2008 Federal election week, which is kind of timely, if you ask me. Why? Well, because everything is interconnected. With the 2010 Olympics and the discussions around the gentrification of the Downtown East Side, there will be a need to re-examine the Federal strategy on homelessness. And I have the feeling that Homeless Action Week may be the catalyzer for this re-examination.

Is lack of homes (and affordable housing) an issue? Well, let’s examine the data provided by the Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness.

A 24-hour snapshot count conducted on March 11 th, 2008 indicates that 2,592 individuals were found to be homeless in the Metro Vancouver region. This number is an increase of 427 individuals over the 2005 count data, or an increase of 19% over the number of homeless individuals found in 2005, and a jump of 131% since 2002.[HAW Research Page]

So, the question again is … how can you help? In addition to all of those great suggestions provided on the RSCH page for Homeless Action Week, you can also
- Blog about it.
- Tweet about it.
- Talk about it with your friends, family, etc.
- Write about it (in print).
- Discuss it on national media.

And, two additional things you can do…

One, you could donate your time, clothing items or food to local food banks. Rebecca has for very long been a champion of Metro Vancouver’s food banks, most recently raising over $10,000 dollars for the United Gospel Mission (along with Duane and with the generous help of Matt Good, Matt’s fans and many other participants). Lack of food would most definitely be an issue that homeless people face.

Two, you can participate in the events for the 2008 Homeless Action Week. Last year, I highlighted some of the 2007 HAW events and had a chance to participate in a few. As I mentioned in that previous post, sustainability, social change and social responsibility start at home, and Vancouver is my home, so that’s where I am trying to effect change.

On that note, I would like to invite you to follow @vanpoverty on Twitter, as this is a project where I am partnering with the brilliant Joe Solomon (@engagejoe on Twitter) to use our combined blogging/social media powers to bring issues of poverty and homelessness in Vancouver to the forefront.

Social media for charity and social change roundup (Vancouver)

Raul — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:15:22 +0000

For those of you who are looking for places where you can effect change and be charitable, here are a few causes you might want to consider:

- Via Jenn Watkiss – Riann Batch is looking to be a Superhero for a Day! The Drop Zone Vancouver is organizing a fundraising event, and Riann is going to be descending single-handedly, as she lost the use of her right arm in a skiing accident last year. Link to Riann’s page is here.

- Via Jay Grandin – Giant Ant Media and The Urban Project are partnering to create a really cool project. In their words [Giant Ant Media - Tanzania]:

Giant Ant Media will be producing a film and web series that follows a group of street youth in the pursuit of recording a hip hop album, with the hopes of breaking out on the Tanzanian music scene. Urban Project, a Vancouver-based charity, will be providing funds to ethically compensate the youth involved via a salary and school fees, while also funding recording studio time.

Their next fundraiser will be a concert at The Anza Club on Sep 10th. Sadly, I won’t be back in Vancouver yet but you’re more than welcome to attend and let me know how fun it was!

And three causes I had already highlighted, but just in case you need a reminder

- Tanya Davis is joining Buzz Bishop’s Team Diabetes and will be running a half-maraton and she’s now going putting her money where her mouth is! Go check her blog entry right now and donate to her cause here.

- Karen Parker is doing the Bicycle Trek for Life and Breath, and you can sponsor her here. Karen is one of the kindest-hearted persons I’ve met. One time, I was feeling down and she took me out shopping and to the Apple Store. How’s that for geek friendship?

- And last, but never least, Barbara Doduk, Keira-Anne and Matt Good are all doing Paws for a Cause. You’ll find their personal donation pages in each of the posts I’ve linked here.

My friend Gus indicated that he was going to do a charity round-up, so I’ll link here and update the post when he puts his up. UPDATE – Go check Gus’ entry on charity, it’s up already!

Homelessness in Vancouver: A very complex issue

Raul — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:28:08 +0000

Last week, I had a conversation with Nancy Zimmerman on her post regarding the ticketing of homeless people who were sleeping in Oppenheimer Park (at 4:30am on Thursday I think), in the Downtown East Side. As I have mentioned before, the realities of the Downtown East Side (DTES) are very complex, and homelessness is not an easy issue to tackle. If it were, Vancouver wouldn’t have any problems of homelessness.

One of the most debilitating and dis-empowering feelings I have ever had in my life is the feeling of not having where to sleep. The most recent time I moved to Canada, I simply didn’t have a place to stay nor had I secured housing at the university. Therefore, for like three weeks, I *had* to stay at a friends’ place. While her apartment was very nice, living out of a set of luggage bags is NOT really nice.

Now, I have adapted to Canada and to Vancouver, but those feelings of disempowerment are not easy to let go. I hope I never get to experience them, ever again.

I am also keenly aware of how much Nancy loves her neighbourhood and how committed she is to social change. I think that we ought to take a holistic view to the homelessness issue and more than anything, be compassionate. We never know when we can end up there. Fate has a way of turning out in unexpected ways.

Upcoming event – Podcasting for Social Change (Net Tuesday)

Raul — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:10:30 +0000

So, remember when I said that I was going to only attend 6 events all month? Scratch that. It’s going to be 5. Green Drinks is colliding with WordCamp Fraser Valley, which means, I can’t do Green Drinks YET AGAIN. Ooops. But on the good news front, I will be going to Net Tuesday, and I want to promote my friend and mentor Dave O’s upcoming event, with the topic “Podcasting For Social Change”. You know you want to go, because he’s got a very fine line-up of speakers, including John Bollwitt, Roland Tanglao, Rob Cottingham, and Dave Olson as a moderator (you’ll NEVER get another chance to spend this much time with these many awesome people at the same time, unless you do Northern Voice 2009… and even then!).

So, mark your calendars – Wednesday July 8th, 5:30pm, WorkSpace. More details? Check Dave O’s blog.

I took the liberty of using DaveO’s YouTube promotional…

Live-blogging Third Tuesday with Joe Solomon

Raul — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:04:12 +0000

We are at The Network Hub. Rebecca is live-blogging and I can’t move by fear of having my laptop die on me. Tod Maffin is doing the introductions for Joe Solomon. After 3 times that you participate, the person who is part of the dialogue with good stuff, gets this book (“Ultimate Blogs”). Barack Obama’s Facebook page is a few hundred people away from one million.

Social media is a group of like-minded people that talk through online tools. Colleen Coplick is describing her survey and explaining how much reach she has now thanks to Web 2.0 tools (e.g. Twitter). You can’t reach some people unless you have online tools.

Joe is describing about his role as a social media consultant for non-profits. When Greenpeace sets up a company in YouTube, it explodes (whereas other companies, for-profits, don’t have the same success). People want to connect to causes (which makes Joe’s job very easy).

[SIDE NOTE - My TwitterFox @hummingbird604 seems down, so if you're Tweeting me, I can't see it right now]

An application – climate change application – won 1 Karma point hehehe. Imagine raising over $ 25 million dollars. If you use the application, and you work hard at it, good things happen.

Social media is really about engaging. A lot of non-profits (the non-Web 2.0 non-profits – knowledge is power – I couldn’t even find their ‘Donate Button’ – pretty hidden).

Using social media with popular social networks. Not talking about NothingButNets, HappyFrog, ChangeEverything. He is going to talk about meeting users on Facebook, Twitter and SecondLife.

FACEBOOK

- Genocide intervention – 2005 – The constituents were calling the senator’s donors (so they had a bill passed). OpenSecrets.org.

- Based in the UK – Facebook group – linked on the wiki. The Coca-Cola campaign – created a group. A blogger wanted to get Coca-Cola to get their user distribution channels to spread dehydration salts (help protect 1/9 children die of de-hydration). If they could get these in the Coca-Cola crates and they could distribute them. He couldn’t do this WITHOUT FACEBOOK.

Colleen asks if donations are working and do they actually go to where they should?

YOUTUBE

- Over 20% of Barack Obama’s videos went to this particular one. This is NOT viral because there is not transformations.

- Really viral video-campaigns.

- YouTube collaboration on climate change – putting a message from one side of the screen to the other side. Handing off this bottle – showing how the US changes the position. It’s viral if you actually move the message and spread it and everyone transforms it.

- Video – tag – instant karma – pass this vid for humanity – make a video of how you want to save the environment and pass this message.

Colleen actually WON the book (congrats Colleen!)

My question – how do you reach out to those like me who are NOT on Facebook.
Joe’s answer – go multi-platform.

Tod Maffin – exception to the norm. What do companies do?
If something is at stake – Joe will latch on there.

How can our client come off like they’re really interested in saving the world?
Well, if it’s not authentic, then it doesn’t work.

Rephrasing his questions – what lessons can be drawn?

TWITTER -

Using the hashtags for people who are depressed. IF we use Twitter and put a hashtag on how the people are feeling (on a scale from 1-10) – but it allows you to engage the groups.

StuckInBed.Org

What is the degree of success?
Many do, but it’s particularly measured in terms of the community.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FROZEN PEA FUND

Frozen Pea Fund – initiated in support of Susan Reynolds. Through the power of Twitter and re-tweeting. It’s a wonderful program in support of women who have faced breast cancer.

[SIDE NOTE - Joe would benefit from speaking more slowly. This is a really cool talk but he's speaking about WAY too much and delivering way too much information too fast. But it appears he's going to talk about KnowMore.org soon, so his basic messages are four - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and KnowMore]

Are we seeing the style of marketing – maybe we turn internal people and make them in the commercial – do we find individuals who happen to work and celebrate them?

Article in Wired by Clive Thompson – about transparency – The See-Through CEO.

BLOGGING

Widgets

ILoveMountains.org – Stop mountain-top removal. In this widget, you can recruit people and it will show you in real-time, and shows how many people you recruit.

Raising awareness (YAY – and now what?, asks Colleen). It’s slowly seducing the new constituents, and potentially there are donations that could go on. For Joe, it’s about getting people involved, in small steps. Change themselves in mountain tops.

You can sign a petition for human rights that every country should have and you can read it and sign it FROM the widget. We are moving into enabling the bloggers to do really cool stuff on their sidebars.

The Nature Conservancy – They started a plant and donate trees – donate a dollar to buy a tree.
- 324,000 trees installed

Facebook has 80 million users. FIREFOX HAS 174 MILLION USERS!!! Can you imagine!

Knowmore.org is a Firefox extension that wiki-profiles companies and the criticisms that these corporations are dogged by. So Joe called them and implement the extension for when you go to Wal-Mart, Nike, etc. You’ll see the ratings from Wal-Mart. You can turn Google into a StumbleUpon that actually will screen each company you search for.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT THE DATA IS CORRECT?
You source it to the experts.

Bruce Byfield suggests – careful with having this hijacked.

Rebecca Bollwitt – Web Annotation – rate the web. She asks a question on this – allowing anyone to leave comments on the web. Maybe you could rate the comments. Good ones up and bad ones lower in the ranking. Failed miserably, apparently.

Question – Do you know of any examples where non-profits have received money from corporate entities as a result of these campaigns?

Tanya – Microsoft got involved in Kiva, as a result of the companies.

The Bill Gates Foundation does a lot of work like that.

JOE – I am available for hire. Social media consultant.

RAUL – I make the point that it is really hard in social science to find out the actual mechanism of influence (HECK I’VE DONE RESEARCH ON THIS!) and the person who asks is – are there examples of grassroots campaigns’ successes of influencing corporations? Joe understands the question but doesn’t have an answer. (I like that about Joe, he’s VERY honest and forthright).

7.50pm – LIVEBLOG FINISHED. I hope you guys liked it!

The inter-mediators: Subject matter experts with a dash of Web 2.0

Raul — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:16:51 +0000

At Darren Barefoot’s recent talk on Third Tuesday, I brought up a point that I thought was worth developing in one of my posts: the concept of intermediaries. I wrote about this idea recently, as I was indicating that there was a need for translators of GeekSpeak: those people who can speak the language of geeks yet still speak traditional, non-jargon-laced English.

However, when I was making this comment to Darren, I was referring to what I am going to subsequently call “inter-mediators“. I define inter-mediator as a subject matter expert who can also speak social media (Web 2.0). Inter-mediators can also be social media experts who dabble on other subject matters. For example, in the field of sustainability, I could be considered an inter-mediator. I have PhD-level training in environmental studies, and I have a fairly decent understanding of social media by now. I am, by no one’s standards, an expert in social media. But I have a blog, which I love, and I have a fairly high number of Web 2.0 friends (note that I said friends, not acquaintances). And I have increasingly gained a better understanding of social media and Web 2.0.

Why is it important that we have inter-mediators? Well, simply because nobody can work alone anymore. Social connectedness and networked relationships are here to stay. You can’t do a campaign for a social change enterprise if you don’t have the subject matter experts. Your marketing campaign for a restaurant chain can greatly benefit from the in-depth knowledge of food critics who also have blogs.

One of the reasons I undertook my MBA training was to be able to speak business to engineers (I am a chemical engineer), and vice-versa. The relationship has to be bi-directional. You can’t just try to market a wastewater treatment process that appears miraculous without having at least some understanding of the technology, so that you can properly design a marketing campaign that really highlights the best features in the process. Along the same way, if you have no understanding of your target market, it doesn’t matter how great the technology is, since you don’t know who you are trying to sell it to.

While I still have a great degree of love for academia, I still love doing research and publishing papers, I can really see myself doing more and more of the role of inter-mediator. Of course, I can write a full-fledged post on the theory of ecolabelling and how OceanWise and SeaChoice as ecolabelling schemes are also environmental policy instruments. I can certainly tells you about the ins and outs of pollution control strategies. But that doesn’t really help you directly (unless you are a consulting firm, the government or one of my students!). However, creating an online strategy to reach out to the public, and help educate folks on the dangers of ignoring climate change is for example, one of the best strategies to use both of my talents (my enviro-geek expertise and my up-and-coming social media geek savvy).

I do know of some people who do this kind of work, like Jason Mogus from Communicopia, Rob Cottingham and Alexandra Samuel, quite obviously ChangeEverything and of course, my friend Jonathon Narvey, who is an excellent writer and has done some freelance work for David Suzuki Foundation if I recall correctly. Somehow, I *think* this is the direction where my career may head. Who knows, I may end up taking up an assistant professorship(*) at one of the local (new) universities, but one thing is sure: The future definitely looks bright for me.

(*) And even if I become a tenure-track professor, I still plan to continue blogging.

Vancouver NetTuesday for May 2008 recap

Raul — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:34:48 +0000

Fresh off of the recent Vancouver NetSquared event (also known as NetTuesday), I just got swamped with work and thus was pretty much unable to write a recap. However, since I have a meeting shortly and I can’t really focus much on work, I figured I might as well write a couple of comments on the meeting.

I had happily volunteered to live-blog the event for Rebecca (on Miss604.com), who couldn’t make it on Tuesday. It was the first time I’ve done a guest live-blog directly on her site, which made me a bit nervous (I feel better if I screw up on my site than on anybody else’s!), but at the same time, I was very excited.

At any rate, the evening, entitled “Welcome to the Widget Revolution” was very entertaining, with two presentations on how non-profits are making use of widgets to advance issues of social justice, sustainability and societal change. The last presentation was actually a demo of SproutBuilder, a great tool-building application.

I have the feeling that some of the participants expected a more geeky/techie kind of talk. The last part definitely was, but the rest was very much about how already built widgets were incorporated into the social media toolkit of a number of non-profits. I think that the message could have been more clearly articulated, although reading again the invite, I have to say that one could have found it from there.

Widgets aren’t just little pieces of portable code. Widgets are about opening up your message to your supporters and the community. Widgets represent a shift towards using online tools, and online thinking, to connect with more people and build deeper relationships with the people you are already connected with.

Vancouver’s 3rd Net Tuesday will explore the stories of nonprofits that are spearheading this revolution as well as demo a new widget platform — Sprout.[Vancouver NetSquared Meetup Site]

I took the liberty of making bold the part where you can read exactly what the event was about, but honestly, I can also understand why it felt as though somehow there was something missing. In the future, I would suggest that the organizers make it a bit clearer. Joe has made a LOT of great choices and put in a lot of hard work, both for speakers AND the sponsors – for example, the food was organic and the cutlery was biodegradable.

Here are some links in case you weren’t there:

Jason Mogus Slideshow: (Click here)

Jason Mogus Video:(Click here)

Scott Nelson Video:(Click here)

It was great as always to see a lot of my fellow Web 2.0 friends, including Nancy Zimmerman, Jonathon Narvey, the always amazing DaveO, Erika Rathje, Nadia Nascimento, Jenn Lowther, and I’m a bit afraid I’ve missed someone, so if I did – sorry! You can always send me an email to reproach me, hehe.