National Initiative for Social Participation

Aldo de Moor reminded the community informatics research list that, "An important development in the U.S. is the National Initiative for Social Participation. A group of ICT/IS/... researchers is outlining a policy agenda and are in touch with the Obama administration. Who knows where this will lead? I would urge members of this list to get involved, we cannot afford to lose this window of opportunity as a community informatics-community!"

http://iparticipate.wikispaces.com/

>From the motivating statement:

"The benefits of social media participation are well understood by Obama's staff -- during the campaign they engaged four million donors and volunteers. Replicating their success a thousand times might promote many of President Obama's goals. To accomplish that a National Initiative for Social Participation could stimulate effective collaborations in many professions, restore community social capital, and coordinate national service projects. The challenge is to understand what motivates participants, such as altruism, reputation, or community service. Researchers would have to develop fresh strategies that increased the conversion rates from readers to contributors from the currently typical 100 to 1 to much higher rates. Getting contributors to collaborate for ambitious efforts and become leaders or mentors are further challenges. Coping with legitimate dangers such as privacy violations, misguided rumors, malicious vandalism, and infrastructure destruction or overload all demand careful planning and testing of potential solutions."

The white paper:

http://iparticipate.wikispaces.com/file/view/NISP+White+Paper+-+6-02-09.pdf

Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70985741334