ICTlogy

This is sort of second part of my previous post. I know there must be some pretty good theory about all this, but I’ve got quite a bad connection and less time to do a little research. So, just thinking out loud.

I find there are four levels of online cooperation, or, to be more specific, online cooperation for development, say, online volunteering

• Advocacy: Online volunteering in advocacy consists in subscribing online campaigns to promote human rights and, more specifically, to report some human rights violation and, thus, to force some change. Amnesty International Spain campaign against death penalty in Nigeria for women such as Safiya Hussaini and Amina Lawal is a very good example. BUT, you’d never call it volunteering if asked to sign for a campaign in the middle of the street, so I’d rarely consider it online volunteering when it happens in the Internet, as I’ve seen these actions often labeled this way. On the other hand, sort of very “light” online volunteering would mean make people know about the campaign. Most of these sites include a “send to a friend” option. I think this is online volunteering, though, as I said, in a very few level of commitment.
• Assessment and consultancy: So you know some things and other people (NGOs) don’t. They have connection to the Internet and so you have. So the online volunteer is asked for advice and he brings back some kind of helpdesk service in plenty of subjects, usually related to NGO management or development projects management. No proactive but reactive. “Little” to “some” level of commitment depending on what happens if you just don’t answer the request for help. SolucionesONG (NGO Solutions), the Spanish online community born thanks to some retired enterprise managers that wanted to volunteer (and then enhanced into a portal by Fundación Chandra) is just that: a clearing house of questions and answers where needs (NGOs) and experts (online volunteers) meet. The online volunteer registers, defines his area of expertise and waits for mails to come in with the questions. Answering back or not is up to you. As there’s more than one person by area of expertise, questions rarely remain unanswered.
• Online volunteers for offline projects: This is the natural evolution of the last level. Why don’t increase the commitment of the online volunteer and give her or him a defined role in the development project the NGO is running? No helpdesk but responsibility: this is your duty, your task. These modality usually converts offline volunteers into online volunteers. I mean: volunteers that would exist anyway but that ICTs allow them not to travel abroad, not to be there in that precise place or then at that precise time. It is full volunteering, but kind of a real volunteering virtualisation. Most serious online volunteering programmes work this way.
• Online volunteers teams for online projects: But why virtualize when the Network could exist by itself? Why not think directly in online volunteers teams instead of thinking how to virtualize them? Why not think in fully online development projects instead of its online side? This is what keeps me thinking lately, related to what I said in my previous post and what I read in Pekka Himanen’s book The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age. e-learning for development projects, just like F/OSS projects, do not need to have an off-line version, support, etc.

Just to conclude: while first and second steps in online volunteer can be a good approach to a newcomer to online cooperation for development, I think steps three and four should be fostered in order to profit from the full potential of ICT4D. We’ve seen very good examples of both, but mainly of the third type. But I think somehow somewhere a virtual community will rise and lead an exponential growth of the fourth type. The F/OSS community has already done it. The e-educators community – specially when talking about authoring and shared authoring tools – is in the way and there’re already new tools that start to make think of a possible and near future of a real virtual community of e-educators (or ICT assisted offline educators). We (I) should think on how to replicate these experiences in the development field.

This morning I ended Pekka Himanen’s book The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age. The book is sort of an “update” of Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic…” explaining that hackers behave quite different than capitalists (this is a weird abstract to the book, I know it). To explain their behavior he uses the example of the Linux community, in particular, and the F/OSS community in general. This communities are essentially virtual, so it is a very good example on how they work online and who plays the role of the promoter and the facilitator, etc.

In Himanen’s book there are plenty of other bibliographic references about how other on-line collaborative projects were made such as the World Wide Web (TCP/IP protocol). These references include, for example: Berners-Lee, Tim (1999), Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor or Raymond, Eric (1997), The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary.

But I’m not selling you the book, though there’s a zillion reasons for you to read it ;) but to think aloud about what el oso also pointed to yesterday in his post Social Entrepreneurship and Project Management.

Himanen explains how the Linux community created – creates – the F/OSS operating system and the way they work: volunteering, no salary, recognition as a pay, networking, collaborative work, Internet based community, public plus personal interest, etc, etc, etc. It is a very good example – maybe the best one – of online volunteering for non-profit causes.

While I wonder why online volunteers for development (provided that the Linux community does not work for development in the general meaning of the concept – I know they do) have not a collaborative structure such as Linux’s, I read el oso’s post where he asks himself why don’t e-volunteers work the way the SourceForge community does.

Besides F/OSS community/ies, virtual volunteers (for development) are quite young: NetAid was created in 1999, Online Volunteering, the UN online volunteers service, was launched in 2000, though it did not move to the actual site until past February; ServiceLeader.org goes back to 1996, year of its foundation, almost in the birth of the World Wide Web, but is not actually an online volunteering program but an information and resources site (one of the best ones). Linus Torvalds called out for help (and implicitly created the Linux community) in 1991.

In my opinion, during these last five years online volunteering has been promoted in an individual point of view: “you’re an NGO working here and there, you have some cooperation for development projects, I want to volunteer, I cannot go here and there, but I have a computer, what can I do?” This is a must, but it is also just phase I.

Thus, I agree with el oso that it is time to go one step beyond. Phase II should mean that some projects for development only take place in the Net, as some advocacy campaigns do. And, surely, re engineering online volunteers management this way is the big challenge we must face in the short short run. Selfmanaged, network designed, Internet located online volunteering teams, I think, will be the only way for a sustainable (exponential) growth of virtual volunteering projects to take place.

Please, I’d really love feedback on this issue! :)

Yersterday I wrote about Serviceleader.org and the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook and said I was printing it for my Christmas readings.

Now that it’s printed and in top of my desk, I cannot avoid writing back about it. The work done by Susan J. Ellis and Jayne Cravens looks G.R.E.A.T! Its table of contents is quite a promise of interesting things about Online Volunteering management:

PART I: Answering Your Basic Questions

• Introduction: about what is “Virtual Volunteering”, why, who, how, etc.
• Chapter 1: Integrating the Internet into
  Volunteer Management: the conversion of volunteers into online volunteers and what does this mean

PART II: Online Volunteer Management

• Chapter 2: Virtual Volunteering Work Design, about responsibilities, assignments design, etc.
• Chapter 3: Recruiting Online Volunteers
• Chapter 4: Selecting and Preparing Online Volunteers, about screening, orientation, skills, etc.
• Chapter 5: Working with Online Volunteers, about coordination and management
• Chapter 6: Evaluating and Recognizing Online Service, about reporting, evaluation, performance, etc.
• Chapter 7: Implementing a Virtual Volunteering Pilot Program

PART III: Making the Most of Online Service

• Chapter 8: Special Issues Online, about nettiquete, confidentiality, assistance, etc.
• Chapter 9: Involvement of People with Disabilities in Virtual Volunteering, about accessibility

Conclusion

Appendixes

• About the Authors
• Appendix A: The Virtual Volunteering Demonstration Project
• Appendix B: Resources

Remember:

The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook (1,28 Mb)

Serviceleader.org is a site full of information about volunteering, including an virtual volunteering section.

In this section we find the following aspects:

• Developing and Implementing a Virtual Volunteering Program
• Frequently Asked Questions
• General Information about Virtual Volunteering
• Online Volunteer Resources
• Sample Online Assignments
• Volunteer Manager Resources
• Volunteers with Disabilities

One of these resources includes the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, a 138 page guide on plenty of online volunteering aspects. I’m printing it as a Christmas holidays reading ;)

The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook (1,28 Mb)

Serviceleader.org added too to the online volunteering related links in this my blog for ICT4D.

VolunteerMatch is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help everyone find a great place to volunteer, and offers a variety of online services to support a community of nonprofit, volunteer and business leaders committed to civic engagement.

Although focused to presential volunteering, they’ve got a virtual volunteering section with lots of opportunities.

The categories are not very clear and are more related to the NGO field of action than to the profile of the volunteer needed (i.e. a fundraiser under “Animals” section – maybe not that wrong ;) Thus, volunteering opportunities should, at least, be browsed by profile required and/or NGO field of action. Say: I am a fundraiser and want to work with someone in the field of whales protection.

By the way, there’s more than 5,000 opportunities today only for the virtual volunteers section, wow! :)

Nabuur.com is a community of on-line communities to provide assessment to villages in need of help all over the world.

It’s an online volunteering project and, according to their web site, it works thit way:

1. A community has an urgent question

It all starts with a local community in a developing country looking for assistance. After a screening by NABUUR this community gets a ‘Village’ on NABUUR.com. On this Village the representative of the local community describes the question or problem to be solved.

2. Virtual Neighbors look for solutions

NABUUR invites visitors to NABUUR.com and they become ‘Neighbors’ of a Village. These virtual Neighbors then start looking for solutions to the question described by the local representative. They work together and report their findings on the Discussion boards of the Village.

3. Best solutions are selected

After several solutions have been found and the best ones selected, the Neighbors present these solutions to the local representative. The local representative discusses the solutions with his or her people.

4. Solutions are implemented

If the solutions found by the Neighbors fit the local situation they are implemented. The Neighbors get to see the results (photos, stories) on NABUUR.com.

In most cases further assistance of the virtual Neighbors is required. A new question is put to the Neighbors by the local representative and the process starts again.