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10 Tactics for turning information into action
- 2. t oolkits & guides
Editor's Notes
- Tactical Tech was established 8 years ago to support rights advocates to effectively use information and communication technologies for advocacy. http://www.tacticaltech.org
- One of the ways we do this it to produce technology support materials and events for rights advocates. Tactical Tech has produced many toolkits and guides over the years. All of them are designed with and for rights advocates and technologists. All of Tactical Tech’s toolkits come with Free and Open Source Software to ensure advocates have access to tools to carry out info-activism. Tactical Tech's toolkits and guides all use Creative Commons licenses to ensure they can be easily adapted, re-mixed and translated to meet different needs.
- This illustration is included in our chapter in this book, SMS uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa. It shows the model we used to develop the toolkit and it’s a model that is adapted for most of our work. Consult and collaborate involved creating a transparent and open process where all of the people and organisations who could contribute and make use of the toolkit were invited to participate in different ways. From here a toolkit development team were established who represented technologists, technology support groups and rights based NGOs and organizations'. These people were located all over Africa and beyond so to collaborate a wiki was created and regular VOIP communication established. The people who worked on the toolkit included Ken Banks from FrontlineSMS, Trixie Conception who popularised the infamous ‘Hello Garcie’, ringtone in the Phillipines and Dorothy Okello from Women of Uganda Network to name but a few. After creating a first draft of the toolkit an open invitation was put out for 4 organisations to do paid testing of the software and to use the toolkit thoroughly and then provide detailed feedback. The four testing orgs were based in Uganda, the DRC, Kenya and Nigeria. This was invaluable since we learnt about problems that were specific to certain phones and operating systems and we identified where their were gaps in information that needed to be addressed. Also, the technologists who had built the software included in the toolkit were on hand to address all the technical issues that arose. This extensive testing process meant that at the end of the process Tactical Tech and our partner Fahamu could be sure that the toolkit was usable in very different contexts throughout Africa and that the materials could be used by non technologists working on the ground.
- Info-Activism is a term Tactical Tech has been using for some years now to refer to what happens when rights advocates turn information about their issue into action that will address it. Within this concept we can talk about both tools and tactics as playing a critical role. But we think it is important that the tool is not the starting point when an NGO is working out what technology they can use to advance their cause. Instead the need for a specific kind of action is what should drive what you do. In info-activism tactics are the approaches that are used to strategically address a goal. Tools are a media vehicle – they are what you use to implement your tactics.
- Our latest production, 10 tactics for turning information into action, came out of the Info-Activism Camp 2009 (http://infoactivismcamp.tacticaltech.org/). The camp followed 7 Open Source Camps we have organised over the years.
- The camp brought together three groups we think are essential for info-activism: rights advocates, technologists and designers. …
- They got to know one another….
- They exchanged skills….
- Had debate and dialogues….
- They developed info-activism strategies and projects they were working on….
- And they built a network that over the next year would support more than 40 projects (see: http://tacticaltech.org/act/news/info-activists-one-year-later).
- We decided to film and document the stories of rights advocates at this event telling how they had used information and digital tools in innovative ways to create positive social change. And we used this stories as the foundation for a new advocacy resource materials: 10 Tactics for turning information into action (http://www.informationactivism.org/)
- So the film is based around 10 tactics you can use to turn information into action. One of the tactics is ‘visualise your message’ and here we have examples of the use of maps, animation and info-graphics.
- The case studies included in these support materials provides really in-depth info that you don’t normally have access to. We tell people how much the actions cost too implement, what tools were used, what skills were needed, what the outcomes were and problems people faced in implementing the action.
- Then we include practical advice to help advocates think through the issues if they want to use the same tactic.
- This is what the full hard-copy looks like. A film and 10 cards based on tactics you can use for info-activism, plus 5 basics cards that covers activities every info-activism action could utilise to develop a strong strategy and plan for implemention and evaluation
- If you can’t see this it’s the trailer here: http://www.informationactivism.org/
- So these are some of the results we’ve seen in the 12 months since we released it. Most of the translations have been done by volunteers who wanted to use the material in local contexts.
- Our task now is to do a on- year-on evaluation of this project and that’s what we are working on now. We have a partnership with Laura Stein from the University of Texas. Some of her students are carrying out evaluation research. They are interviewing organisations who did screening events to find out what happened at the events and after and to get a deeper understanding of info-activism in different countries and contexts. This is our outreach map for 2009 and we’ll do another for all our materials for 2010. We also have about 100 complete in-depth surveys from users of 10 tactics which we periodically review and respond to. For example people have asked us to develop training materials so we are doing that now. Most importantly though we are carrying out ongoing monitoring by publishing the stories of people who’ve used the materials. See: http://www.informationactivism.org/