The Challenge of Social Technologies

David Steven, River Path Associates

All networked up

Daily Summit # 1

World Summit on Sustainable Development

“Instant news and comment” Updated 10 times a day Went where the mainstream media

wouldn’t/couldn’t

Screen grab of dailysummit 1

FSTR technology

On the hoof…• Technology: cheap, flexible, versatile• Content: broad, deep, expensive• Marketing: not an add-on • Learning opportunity for institution

The benchmark by which blogger coverage of political events may be judged

Tim Blair

The Australian

Building a buzz

High impact:• 110,000 site visits in 2 month ‘live’

period• Many regular visitors – community

created• 262 inward links• Ranked 5th on Google – official British

government site ranked 18th

• Ranked top on DayPop

Screen grab of DayPop

Daily Summit # 2

World Summit on the Information Society

Dual language site – English/Arabic Team of reporters

Screen grab of dailysummit 2

A different kind of buzz…

Niche publishing• 60,000 site visits and 250 links• Extensive media coverage – Guardian,

BBC, various radio etc.• Iranian webloggers/Iranian president

Citizen’s media meets bulldog journalism; finds the future of news: I’m witnessing the future of journalism

Jeff Jarvis

Screen grab of WBP

World Bank President

Amplification• Who will succeed James Wolfensohn?• From ‘off-the-radar’ to media firestorm• First stop for world’s media• Huge interest inside the Bank

If any of you want to be up to date on the inside scoop check World Bank President and you’ll probably know as much as I do.

James Wolfensohn

Screen grab of Low Level Panel

Low Level Panel

Building a movement• Driving grassroots change across the

UN system• Blogging… also tagging, forum, Flickr,

Wikipedia etc.• Innovation in the ‘grey spaces’: hive

mind

It doesn’t work…

Low appetite for risk

Not prepared to move fast

Insistent on traditional command and control

Technology as ‘cudgel’

Know what you’re doing before you start

Traditional notions of authority

It works… Interesting story to tell Story tellers enabled Genuine connection to

audience Playful attitude to technology Learning through

experimentation Not waiting for permission

Why use social technologies?

Information strategies and policy influence

Current information strategies- ‘Open source’ challenge –often under

the radar Information foraging

- ‘Folksonomy’ challenge – experiments with emergent order

Information landscape of tomorrow- Disruptive change the only constant