Lars Hasselblad Torres said (in the book publishing thread):

Looks like the conversation is happening here: http://www.ned.com/group/lia-usa /news/11/

Thank you!

I think you'll find it's best to keep the discussion about your project in one place, Tonny.

But if you wish, we could focus here on discussion of ways in which projects like yours might benefit from having a connection with a randomly allocated partner area.

If you like this idea, perhaps I could retitle the thread to something with a little wider reference.

Suggestions, anyone?

Dan,

Are you addressing me or Tonny? Or both of us?

I've made a tentative start with a World Connectory web site, following Jonathan Edmonds advise to use Googlepages. But I don't know how to move my Googlepages to my website at http://connectory.org/

In fact, I don't know how to publish anything there without learning Joomla first!

:(

David wrote:

...ways in which projects like yours might benefit from having a connection with a randomly allocated partner area.

Could you explore that a little more, David? Do you have people in each partner area eager to engage others in the world around particular or general ideas? how would you describe the benefits for a project like Kasinja's?

Kasinja, I'll look forward to reading your project proposal. Bayiga, welcome.

David Bale said:

Dan,

Are you addressing me or Tonny? Or both of us?

I was addressing Tonny, and others in cities and countries where they are isolated from resources, but where there may be others in different parts of the same city or country who are doing similar work, and are just as isolated.

It seems that the Connectory project can bring some attention to such groups from a global basis, but there needs to be some local ownership in order to give daily attention to the needs of groups in local areas.

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

David wrote:

...ways in which projects like yours might benefit from having a connection with a randomly allocated partner area.

Could you explore that a little more, David? Do you have people in each partner area eager to engage others in the world around particular or general ideas? how would you describe the benefits for a project like Kasinja's?

On a date still to be decided, but probably early in 2009, The World Connectory Project will simultaneously provide 2,400 areas from developing countries with 2,400 individually-designated partner areas from one of the world's more economically developed countries. Each of these areas will contain about half a million people, making a potential for up to million people to work together for the mutual benefit of both partner areas.

Of course, the vast majority of people in all the areas are unlikely to choose to get involved in the Project, at least, not initially. But even if only 0.1% are interested in the Project, that would be 50 people. And 50 people could accomplish quite a bit.

So to answer Lars' question - no, I don't have specific individuals in any of these areas "eager to engage others in the world". But I think I can safely say that in most of these areas such individuals who are eager to engage are there; they'tre just waiting to be found.

That's where the folk in the developing countries come in.

Picture a see-saw. People from one of the List A countries (developing countries) are on one end of the see-saw. People from the List B partner area (developed countries) are on the other end.

If neither end does anything, the see-saw won't work. But if the people at one end or the other start to work the see-saw the people at the other end usually respon and the see-saw works.

So too the World Connectory can be powered at the start from either end.

The WWC (or Worldwide Connectory) is a kind of manual that is being designed to help people in both List A and List B countries take the steps needed to make contact with the right ("eager to engage") people in their own linked partner area.

List A residents might get together and decide what projects they would like to work on in conjunction with people from their List B partner area. The WWC will list for each area newspapers and radio stations that might be contacted for help in finding the right people.

Of course, this may work - people eager to engage may not be found.

But I believe they will. And once they are, I think ways to engage will also be found.

Now to address Lars' second point:

how would you describe the benefits for a project like Kasinja's?

Turning to Tonny's project, there are a number of groups and organisations, as well as interested individuals, that could probably be found in most List B areas who would be happy to offer some help or collaboration.

If we take the WWC connection area in which I live as an example: I live in the "Cambridgeshire (excluding Peterborough & Fenland)" part of the UK. I live in a small village in the west of the region. I can immediately think of 20 or 30 people locally I think might be interested in helping if a precise or particular way of helping became clear.

Just recently I've started to collect children's football boots for use in Uganda. All kinds of people suddenly become interested in this, because they could see a way that they can help that will cost them little but be of good use to others.

In the same way, there would be many people who would want to help others to have the chance to learn. And there would be school and colleges, book publishers, bookshops, software manufacturers etc etc in other parts of this same area of Cambridgeshire who could be engaged in a good project like the one being put forward by Tonny and Nalubega Teddy, provided the right way to engage people's interest in it could be found.

For example, I know a group of people in Cambridge (originally a group from the University, I believe) that collects technical and educational journals and ships them out to Ethiopia. This is pretty expensive, but plenty of people can see the value of doing this and donate towards the shipping costs.

Now suppose a project like this were to hook up with the Book Project for Poor Students, there could be an ongoing source of educational material to be republished and distributed right across Africa, and not just to Addis Ababa.

But this is just an illustration. Not an actual proposal.

It is an essential part of the WCP that everywhere in the world should have an equal chance of being linked up with any given place. So the spirit of the WCP is that the links are there to be made, whatever partner area is allocated. Throughout the world's developed countries there will be colleges and books and software providers whatever the WWC area may be. Ways that work in one area can be copied in other areas.

And the more that people in List B countries get to know what life is really like in their own List A partner area, the more fruitful the collaboration between them is likely to become.

With every project there will be a potential for:

• good ideas put forward from the List A partner area
• good ideas put forward from the List B partner area
• good ideas arising from the partner areas working together
• good ideas coming from elsewhere, but implemented by the partner areas

The World Connectory Project doesn't offer specific solutions, but it offers a framework for mutual understanding, collaboration, assistance towards establishing sustainable self-help schemes and a sharing of opportunities and achievements.

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

David and Dan, have you explored the possibility of bringing the connectory into Ned.com - as a "component" that you've developed and they host? I am interested that you want to bring it into joomla - ned could be more powerful, stable and faster for what you want to achieve (joomla is a cms, not a collaboration tool).

With 189 WWC workspace pages already, I kinda feel that I've almost sneaked into doing that anyway, Lars!

:D

And ned is a great platform.

What train is required? And where do I get a ticket?

I'm seriously interested.

i don't think workspace pages are suitable for sustained, scaled public use. i'm sure it works just fine as a place for you and your collaborators to gather up information. i am not convinced its the kind of tool for the public to "consume" from, if you know what i mean.

if i hear your proposal correctly, there is an interesting dilemma, which is that it seems more realistic that one place (for example, cambridgeshire) would be "better connected" if anyone could find a way to plug in by interest. so for example, once a region is linked by one person's interest, how does it scale with new people, new interests?

the best model seems to be facilitating many-to-many partnerships, or am i missing something big in terms of the Place A linked to Place B model?

Perhaps I need to expand a bit. I don't envisage that a WWC area would be limited by one person's interest at all.

Even within a densely populated city, an area with a half million population will contain quite a number of separate districts or neighbourhoods. Within each centre of population of this kind, the WWC manual will suggest that people set up "Connection Groups". It won't be obligatory - the Project is intended to be almost totally decentralised and it will be up to those living in each WWC connection area to plan things anyway they choose.

One suggestion will be that an individual (or, better, a small group of people) might set up a local Connection Group by emailing all the organisations in the locality, drawing their attention to the fact that they are part of a larger district that has been linked to another area in a different part of the world, proposing that they might like to contribute to the setting up of a local Connection Group to plan ways of using this international link, and requesting that they send one or two representatives to a meeting to discuss this.

Once a Connection Group has been set up in one part of a WWC area, there will be a template for establishing similar Connection Groups in the other local centres of population as well.

Representatives from the separate Connection Groups might meet to discuss issues such as

• recruitment / publicity
• variety of ways of connecting with the partner area: ex pats / international students / world organisations / faith groups / arts, sports, interest groups / links with media in both partner areas / mapping groups to communicate information to each other about their respective WWC areas
• Subdividing the two WWC areas so that similar localities within them might agree to forge special relationships: e.g. larger towns might become community twins (as opposed to the more familiar civic twinning widely found, especially across developed countries); individual villages might be twinned; or hospitals, schools, prisons, radio stations etc.
• shared investigation into the development projects already operating in the partner area
• a calendar of Connection Area events, probably tied in with the list of year-by-year activities suggested in the WWC manual, activities such as the setting up of shared webspace for the use of both connection areas, publicity events (perhaps with speakers with connections to the partner area), exchange of community photos and stories, simulataneous exhibitions in the two areas with displays about life in the partner area, information events about the non-profits operating in the partner area, exchange visits, development of collaborative projects both at an area level and at a more local level too, a connection area newsletter to communicate with members across the area as well as, perhaps, in other connection areas - and so on.

So yes, Lars, it's intended to be all about facilitating many-to-many partnerships, even though, in every area, this may well begin with one or two special interest groups or links.

Does this clarify my thinking?

LOL so here's where the conversation is :-) Ned is so much fun because discussion really can take on a life of their own. But also because there are quite a few discussions that people are taking part, it's good to try to make sure the conversation is in one place. Welcome Nalubega Teddy! It's worth poking in and saying hello at the Meet and Greet that way you're sure to be introduced to lots of people all at once.

I must say that ever since I saw this subject, well, in one way I've been thinking about money, and the other thing I've been thinking about is what publishing means today.

With book publishing, the money generally has been around the exclusive rights that copyright privilege. But many forms of digital media are causing people to rethink copyright in favor of more open source ideas about publishing.

It really changes a lot. For example at the highest levels, say for example academic doctors who are making breakthroughs in treatment,now and for a long time they've published in academic journals. There were never very many copies of these journals published, mostly it was medical libraries who purchased them. So the journals are incredibly expensive. But to be published in journals, one of the important things is to make sure what is written is accurate and up to date. The only people who know enough to say are other academic doctors. So other doctors review carefully all of the studies before they are published. But the reviewers don't get paid for their hard work. Really the authors of the articles don't either. So many in the academic world are interested in publishing their journals online and open source, so people can print them out. That means more people will see the articles, and it certainly is cheaper than printing all the articles out. But more of this hasn't happened because nobody has really figured out the money aspect of publishing in this way.

It's not bad that nobody has figured it out, what's happening is people are experimenting now with different ways of publishing.

And I think it's important to know that there is quite a lot of open source educational material for sharing online. So part of the role of the new publisher is to make materials accessible to people so they can really use them. It's important to do this efficiently so the costs are not too great.

But you guys are young, you need to figure out ways to do good and still make enough--at least have the possibility of making enough--to save for housing and starting a family and all that sort of important real-life stuff.

Grants can be very helpful in getting a business like this off the ground, but attention must be paid to ways of getting revenue.

There's something called brainstorming. What that means is to generate lots of ideas without judging the ideas too much, just to collect lots of ideas, then with lots of ideas to work with to begin analysis and make judgments about which ideas to really pursue.

I have lots of brainstorming ideas. But there's nothing worse than having someone brainstorming after essential decisions have been made. I'm more inclined to let brainstorming go on longer than most people too. So I guess what I need some more information about where you are at in this idea so I can forge a better sense of what sorts of things you need help on. Yes of course, I know you need tools, computer, paper, a place. What I'm not as sure of is how you envision this business one year, two years, three years out.

http://www.ned.com/group/communi ty-general/news/126/

David & Lars,

The links that are shown below are to PDFs on my site that illustrate what people in either side of David's connectory groups might do to draw attention to the needs of people in a geographic area of the world, or in a cause that covers many geographic areas. As more people take the roles described in these essays, more adttention will flow to groups working to solve problems.

The first is a collaboration goals pdf:

http://www.tutormentorexchange.n et/Partner/CC/Presentations/coll aboration/Collaboration%20Goals. pdf

The second is the role of intermediary, or network weaver, in connecting people they know to people and organizations in places where help is needed:

http://www.tutormentorexchange.n et/Partner/CC/Presentations/TMC_ Role/Connecting%20those%20who%20 need%20help.pdf

Dan wrote:

The second is the role of intermediary, or network weaver, in connecting people they know to people and organizations in places where help is needed

What's great about that is that its not geographic dependent, and its not arbitrary. A successful "weaver" I am sure possesses some distinct knowledge (ie "where to look"), valuable filters (ie "what makes a node reliable"), discernment, and solid communication abilities.

KASINJA TONNY HENRY said:

Hi, i would love to know how you are going to get these intermediators? it looks a complex issue . Lars we are preparing the proposal. Thank you

You can be the intermediary for your own community, or country. Just build it into your strategic plan, and your business plan, and your technology plan. Start small, but build your business so you can still be doing this work in 15 years. I started my organization in 1993 based on work I had been doing since 1974.

Tonny,

How exactly would you like people to help? Both people in Kampala and elsewhere in the world?

Are there specific actions you would like people to take?

For example, do you have the equipment you need to make your venture succeed? Do you need a loan to help get your project really moving? If so, how much and by when?

And what have you tried doing to date that has not been as successful as you would have liked? Why wasn't it as much of a success as you hoped? What might make it more succcessful if you tried doing it again?

The more you can be specific about the things you need, the greater the likelihood that someone will be able to step in and help.

:)