Social networking and the Digital Divide No comments yet

Interesting post by David Wilcox today about digital inclusion in the era of social networking. I have to admit to some concerns that there is an implied need to fully engage with the ‘digital world’ in order to be an effective social networker. The digital medium might present more opportunities for social networking, but doesn’t create an effective social networker. But perhaps I’m over-simplifying the argument.

David goes on to mention a workshop game he is developing for the Digital Challenge Inclusion Network that
will help people play through the design and development of
a digital inclusion strategy. He suggests a set of propositions for this game:

1. Digital inclusion is social inclusion.
2. The main social benefits stem from interaction.
3. Digital inclusion technologies must be personal.
4. Personal social benefit occurs in a network environment.
5. Inclusive networks require support roles.
6. Walled gardens offer limited benefit.
7. Digital inclusion requires a collaborative culture.
8. Civil institutions must join in.
9. Technology is not the starting point for design.
10. Go with the Web 2.0 flow.
11. Staff need to be digitally included too.
12. Walk the talk.
13. Co-design rather than consult.

For a more detailed explanation of the above, best to read the full posting.

Personalised and Community Search 3 comments

I’m not sure if anyone else has tried out the beta ‘Coop’ facility recently announced by Google.

Dave Briggs has used this to set up a federated/personalised search engine – LGSEARCH – for searching across all local government web sites.

I think this is an excellent demonstration of how the technolgy can be used to obtain more relevant results by restricting search to trusted or authoratitive sites. Something I’d already included in the next set of requirements for the IDeA’s Communities of Practice site but without knowing what the solution was. I think this could be it! My thanks to Dave for demonstrating what is possible.