The Membership Project

The government have launched a toolkit for local groups to feed back to them on issues around empowerment. I have some issues with it, but there is some good stuff in there and at least they seem to be trying to listen!

 

Although we started this project by Throwing mud at the wall, I think we are coming to the point where we need to address the Cat Question, from Alice in Wonderland:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

In other words, what and who is this project for, in the digital wonderland. We have said that it "explores how the social web and other factors are changing the ways in which we may belong to groups and organisations" - but we'll need to be more specific if we are to engage people, as we hope, in a collaborative exploration that produces something useful at the end. I've found two main strands emerging: one with a research focus, and the other around products and services. I think we want to end up with:  read more »

Something which I am sure will be of interest to folk here is the toolkit David Wilcox and I (as well as others, hopefully!) are developing online.

We have a development wiki at http://etoolkit.wikispaces.com/ though 'etoolkit' is very much a working title.

The toolkit can be used by any organisation to determine their approach to web 2.0 and social media tools. This is to be developed in the open, and made freely available afterward.

The aim is to mix low and high tech methods to ensure the best results are achieved - which may involve advising people not to use the web at all!

It is envisaged that the toolkit will be made up of 3 elements:
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