The Networker project at NCexChange

An appreciation by David Wilcox, Partnerships Online, UK

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It all started in North Carolina ....

There's a real sense in which the story of community networking in the UK would not have happened the way it has without NCexChange and other ideas from North Carolina.

• Terry Grunwald's Making the Net Work - and her wise thoughts online and face to face - have underpinned a lot of our thinking. I'll explain just how later.
• The idea in 1996 from Steve Snow of Charlotte's Web for an International Association for Community Networking inspired us to some national organising in the UK and Europe.

The NET worker project has had more impact than you know... and I believe there is more to come.... but more about that later.

How did I get here... and what is happening in the UK

My inspiration and that of others came from seeing US community networks online once we had Internet connections back in 1994. A trip to the Ties That Bind conference in Curpertino in 1995 provided lift off... and trips since then have refueled my enthusiasm, as the story shows.

The idea of an International Association led to a 'UK chapter' - UK Communities Online - back in 1997, with funding from, BT, Government , IBM and Marconi Communicsations .... although the international association didn't itself take off. We needed to organise locally first. We also found we had to reorganise into different groups, because some people wanted to evangelise, some to network, others to experiment. Partnerships Online came out of the reorganisation, with a focus on helping get non-profits get online and developing the 'how to' of community networking.

We now have a number of organisations working at national level in the UK, and fortunately we all get along well. We have support from Government, from industry and today from the BBC which is running an Online Communities Day conference with representatives from AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Sony as well as Government and non-profits. We don't have the funds we need, but have good contacts.

We hope to work with the BBC to develop a gateway to local projects, some programmes about creating online communities, and a toolkit. It is early days, but we do have an agreed statement about what we might achieve.

Some things I learned from NCeXchange through Terry

A definition - community networking is a movement to:

• Extend the benefits of the Information Age to all citizens
• Use technology to create sustainable communities

Its goals are equal access, capacity building and empowerment.

That focus on sustainable communities is important for us, because it means technology systems are designed to meet community needs, and there is a framework we can draw on from community development and sustainable development.

Lots of valuable perceptions

• Technology can be neutral ground for different interests
• Many of the benefits are off-line... the people you meet
• To be successful you have to start with people, organisations not groups
• At the same time you have to realise the technology will change the here and now... so building only on today's institutions isn't enough
• And many other lessons learned which you have now extracted from Networker project experience....they are so wise

Good quotes

• Don't try and get all the frogs in the wheelbarrow at the same time
• Go with the stones that roll

Good lists we featured in Getting Connected

• Four main technology benefits... information, communication, collaboration, visibility
• Seven heresies which sparked a lot of online discussion
• Thirteen technology barriers

Similar problems

• Collaboration and partnership is essential - but is incredibly difficult
• It is difficult to do things which are universal, tailored and fast
• It is all circular - chicken and egg - because it is difficult for people to 'get it' until they have access, they will get it when they see something they want.... but how can you design that without asking people... and how can they contribute ideas if they don't know what the technology can do?

Plus - an overall framework and mapping of what we may mean by community networking in terms of functions and roles... see Terry's presentations and some diagrams I have been developing as part of a set of pages about community networking. I'm also drawing on the Seven Steps start up process developed by Terry and Philippa Gamse about five years ago.

What I would like to do next

• Develop a more structured way in which we can learn from each other - a toolkit, exchanges
• Make that interactive on and offline - see for example our Neighbourhoods Online game
• An international network of NETworkers - learning network. From networks, to networking, to networkers.
• Try and get community networking into the mainstream which leverage from the BBC and others.

How might we do this

The problems with this field is that it is extremely challenging because of how much it encompasses and the different interests involved. You need a wide range of expertise, lots of allies, and resources.

If you spend the time assembling all that, opportunities pass you by. If you try and do it alone you can't make much impact.

How can we focus and make an impact?

One idea Terry and I have been developing is to continue to celebrate the pioneering role of North Carolina, and showcase it as a testbed for others to learn from around the world. here's some possible steps:

• A small group from North Carolina comes across to the UK to plan some twinning - State to country (the size isn't that different!)
• We run a seminar with UK Government, industry and community networking representatives
• From that we develop ideas for a best practices showcase, a toolkit, a conference, more exchanges... whatever comes out of our creative workshopping.

How does that sound to you?