Somus final seminar 27.1.2011

Citizen participation and social media Final seminar of the Somus project 27.1.2011

SOMUS in short Caj Södergård VTT

What is SOMUS?
” Social media for citizens and public sector collaboration”
Funded by the Academy of Finland (2009-2010)
Multidisciplinary research partners:
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland / Media Technologies
University of Tampere / Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communications
University of Jyväskylä / Dept. of Social Sciences and Philosophy
Aalto University School of Technology / Dept. of Media Technology
The Open Research Swarm / http://parvi.fi

Project themes
Study citizenship and participation in social media environment
Prototype social media based concepts for dialogue between citizen groups, public sector, mass media
Create and validate a model for open Internet-based research

SOMUS sub-projects
Participatory media
Climate change theme with high school students
Immigrant media
Increasing immigrant participation and dialogue
Instant media
Communication and swarming in ’crisis’ situations
Community-driven design
Mashup and Web 2.0 technologies

somus.vtt.fi

Open collaboration? Tools, methods & learnings Somus seminar 27.1.2011 Teemu Ropponen

Open collaboration today
Video streaming on Bambuser http:// bambuser.com / channel / somus
Qaiku as a “back channel”: http:// j.mp / somusliverapo
EtherPads for collaborative writing: http:// j.mp /gA6zBe
Blog as a gateway: http:// somus.vtt.fi
Somus report: http:// j.mp / somusreport

Somus - openness since day 1 We started finding researchers and planning SOMUS openly on Jaiku. This was a bottom-up approach.

TOOLS AND PRACTICES FOR OPEN COMMUNICATION & COLLABORATION

Artefact & backchannel in one

Collaboration tools in Somus Somus applied openness in nearly all types of research tasks.

Openness competence?
Dealing with constant incompleteness
Networking skills
Varying work roles
Self-organization
Facilitation of networked processes
Agility
Ethics

Results – on a practical level
Being open requires a lot of work
Navigating through”information space” is difficult
Keeping information & process understandable for people to join later on – ”meta-talk”
Being open can be inclusive
Great for getting new ideas and resources
… but esp. in later phases of project, quite difficult
Great on a team-building level
Suitability for emerging, multi-disciplinary topics
Open collaboration quite difficult for organizations

Steps ahead
During the time of the period, both development and adoption of open and free online collaboration tools increased sharply
Open communication/collaboration becoming part of legal formalities (e.g. associations)
Many projects and organizations in Finland have adopted some similar principles or practices as the Somus project,

THANKS! Teemu Ropponen Teemu.ropponen@aalto.fi +358 40 525 5153

Online Participation Design & Society Somus seminar 27.1.2011 Auli Harju, University of Tampere Pirjo Näkki, VTT

Aims of Somus cases
Grass root civic participation
Citizen-driven social media services
Participatory design with user communities
High school students
Immigrants
 different goals, social media usage, aims in society etc.

Climate change challenge website Civic participation in connection to media education
T wo groups of high school students planning a climate challenge website

In the class room…
Discussing climate change
Defining the goals together
Mapping media use
Getting to know new tools
Brainstorming ideas for content and design
Evaluating the design and demo versions
Creating the content of the website

Case: Immigrant media
What kind of online service would promote immigrants’ civic partipation?
Monimos team: Moniheli, EPACE and Somus
Monthly design workshops
face to face / via Skype
Open design space in Owela

Monimos.fi
Virtual meeting place for internationally minded people and multicultural associations

Learnings from the design process
Mix of design methods (f2f, online)
Context, skills
Resources, f acilitation
Democracy vs. design decisions
Transparency of the process
Designer’s participation in the team
Committed team vs. ownership of big audience
Community and participation need to be designed through use

Motivations for participation
Inspiring, important goal
Tools: fun, easy to use
Team work, group spirit
Learning
Networking
Competition
Real-time feedback (from researchers / decision-makers)

Civic participation and social media
’ Civic cultures’ as a resource for participation
Identities, values, (social) media use, skills & knowledge,…
E xisting social media participatory practices: possibilities and challenges
Planning the unplanned
Design the service (goal, timeline, users,...)
Use cultures develop on their own
Wide publicity is needed – Mass media matters!

Citizens’ Self-organization in the real-time web Somus seminar 27.1.2011 Kari A. Hintikka, University of Jyväskylä

Open Data Somus seminar 27.1.2011 Petri Kola

open/public/private/governmet

apps4finland.fi

julkinendata.fi

Open governmetal data in Finland
Kiviniemi’s Government program: Decision DRAFT
Working groups
Julkisen tiedon saatavuus (LVM)
Julkishallinnon tietovarantojen saatavuuden ja käytön edistäminen (VM)
Julkishallinnon perustietovarantojen rajapinnat (VM)
Tutkimuksen tietoaineistot selvityshankkeen ohjausryhmä (OKM/CSC)

Finnish open data scene
Kiviniemi’s Government program: Decision DRAFT
Working groups
growing number of developers
data.suomi.fi
Helsinki Library
National Land Survey
Helsingin Sanomat

Helsinki Region Infoshare

Open data for participation
Transparency, informed decision making
Requires tools or technical skills
Has innovation potential
New skills needed

Somus final seminar 27.1.2011

by Pirjo Friedrich

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