Doing it Better

The time has come for me to plug my friend and colleague’s project called “Doing it Better’. Whilst this conjures up some fanciful images it is actually an ambitious project he describes as follows:

“The Doing IT Better project is a 3-year social justice initiative of the Centre for Community Networking Research, Faculty of Information Technology Monash University, and the Victorian Council of Social Service, generously funded by a foundation.
The goal of the project is to enable community organisations to significantly improve both their organisational technological expertise and their ability to transmit that expertise to their clients—ultimately empowering both.

The project is lead by Dr Larry Stillman of the Centre for Community Networking Research at Monash, with Dean Lombard of VCOSS.”

Despite becoming very selective about what I get involved with these days (old age and cynicism?) I have put my hand up to be on the working group for this project and I have done so because:

• The project is actually funded for three years…in the community sector anything funded beyond a year is a supreme rarity
• It has the ICT needs of the community sector as central to its mission
• The working group is drawn from a very broad range of community organisations (from the Victorian University of Technology, Engineers Without Borders, The Good Shepherd, InfoExchange, community consultants, small business with a community focus)
• It works creatively about identifying and addressing what community organisations need and will need in the future if ICT is not to become the albatross around their organizational necks)
• It has an action research focus

Last week a working group meeting was held in the fabulous computer lab at Duke St Community House (Sunshine, Melbourne, Australi ). About 10 people attended and had a free flowing discussion that touched on Drupal, other CMS software, the capacity and willingness of community organisations to problem solve a range of ICT issues in their organisations, the romance and reality of ICT and its future in community organisations.

For more information about this worthwhile project visit: Doing it Better Project

In the past few weeks both my laptop and PC decided to commit electronic hari kiri almost at exactly the same time! How is it that inanimate (yeah right!), electronic gizmos seem to know when you need them most? Although there is an age gap of about 3 years between my laptop and PC they both died within days of each other. Was this a planned, calculated digital suicide pact designed to instill terror of Blair Witch proportions? I have Toy Story visions of my loose lipped laptop propositioning papa PC and talking it into all manner of unspeakable acts. But why this synchronized suicide? Was I a little too rough with my keyboards? Did I demand too much of my motherboards? Did I expect performances of such intricate maneuvers that they both expired from over exhaustion? I will now, never know. I will forever walk the virtual corridors wondering what was and what could have been.

Dear LP and PC
wherever you may be
or wherever you may roam
remember your mama
loved you
and wish you would come home

Does anything rhyme with Drupal? In my Drupal inspired sleeplessness of late, this is what obsesses me, given that I couldn’t work out anything else about this so called miracle CMS. You can’t think of one can you?? It’s like the word ‘purple’ or ‘orange’. It stands alone in the wilderness of the English lexicon and as far as I’m concerned deserves its linguistic isolation. As a non-programming savvy designer, Drupal has managed to do what people have not: reduced me to a teary, GIBBERING SHELL OF MY FORMER SELF.

I first heard of Drupal at a recent conference where Daniel Ben-Horin, of CompuMento and Techsoup spoke about its alleged capabilities. Then the word seemed to be everywhere. Drupal here Drupal there. It made bold and luscious claims.

Given my obsessive and infinite search for the holy grail of software to solve our community’s multimedia woes I foolishly began trying (…and trying and trying and trying…) to understand and learn it. I tried to read the impenetrable mountain of stuff written about it online, I badgered colleagues to help this lame and clueless designer. I even resorted to seeking out strangers who had actually slayed the Drupal dragon. But alas no matter how much or how hard I tried I got nowhere fast. After the wonderfully visual interface of Dreamweaver, Drupal looked like a spaghetti of text that had nothing intuitive to redeem it.

Is it a girl thing? or is it just a me thing? There is nothing quite like the inability to master a software program that renders grown hitherto intelligent, capable adults into blubbering, shuddering foetal messes. But in my favour (?) I have inherited my sheep herding Greek father’s legendary obstinacy (I’d like to think it’s tenacity) which manifests in an inability to let go of something till I can master (defeat!!!!) any dragon that dares to flare its flame at moi!!

This however has entailed many, many nights of mad mouse clicking and hitting the enter key like I was throwing balls at a fairground pile of tin cans. Blind, clueless shots yielding equally clueless results, results that had no resemblance to anything logical or predictable. Nodes? Indecipherable paths, theme intractability, image placement impossibility, modules????? If a god exists why did it not extend a loving arm in my hour of needy futility???

However, in the wee small hours of yesterday, on the threshold of admitting defeat, something akin to a Lourdes miracle began to materialise. Not because of any understanding based on logic but on sheer Pavlovian repetition. I had found that when I selected and clicked certain elements in the program in a particular sequence something resembling a page began to emerge from the quagmire of the Drupal swamp. Armed with this glimmer of hope I repeated these sequences, time and time again hoping to engrave these behaviours as deeply and as permanently into the grooves of my very, very exhausted grey mass as possible.

Today, I still claim that Drupal is a nightmare for the non-programming savvy beginner to understand but I am prepared to tread lightly into its murky terrain because intuition tells me that this is a mistress that is playing hard to get but might be worth the chase.

When you are over 40 (or admit to being so) and you’ve worked in the non-profit community sector for more years than you care to remember, you’ve been to more talk fests than you have had hot dinners. Most talk fests evaporate into the hazy ether. Despite all the goodwill and warm fuzzy feelings you may have generated at a well lubricated conference or a well catered for seminar, much of the ‘grande plan’ momentum is soon buried in the daily reality of our centres or offices. At a recent conference I heard something that really summed up the way in which we work in the non-profit community sector. The speaker said that we are so busy handling urgent matters that we have little time to do the important things. Touche!!

Today at the Department of Victorian Communities sponsored ‘In the Community’ seminar in Brimbank, over 100 people and Brimbank organisations gathered to talk with DVC to discuss ways in which this relatively new government department and initiative could best work with Victorian communities. Whilst there was lots to indicate it was a talkfest, the spirit of the day left me somewhat hopeful. Oft times I walk away seething that my time was wasted and that I could have been better off filing my nails rather than absorbing more bureaucratic ‘nothing speak’.

“The suits” (sorry “suits”) for the first time in a long time came to us, walked among us and even shared the same air as we did. But hark, not only that, they sat at small tables and looked like they were genuinely listening. They took copious notes as we (the non-suited ‘community’) spoke and at the end of proceedings made some commitment to continuing this dialogue. In fact what is more impressive is that DVC has committed itself to conducting these community consultations right across our fair but parched state. I commend them. My hardened, cynical brow has softened a tad but shall remain furrowed till we (da people, da mob in common parlance) see some action in our trenches.

This promises to be interesting. Stay tuned!

Back from the 3 day Connecting Up Conference in Adelaide. Its purpose (in the organisiser’s words):

The Goals of the conference are:

• To provide a platform for innovative communities, businesses and governments around Australia to share their experiences, successes and lessons learned from programs and projects designed to change their ’world’, whether it be a neighbourhood or a nation.
• To promote the social and economic benefits for disadvantaged and isolated communities of access to affordable technology.
• To provide opportunities for like-minded not-for-profits, communities, governments and businesses to build networks and develop programs and projects.
• To create momentum towards a national approach to ensuring that the technology capacity of community and not-for-profit organisations allows them to effectively operate in the digital world.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

After a lifetime working in the non-profit sector and having attended more conferences than Methuselah, my interest lies less in the workshops than in the yabba yabba done between the margins. I want to know who these crazy, brilliant odd bod souls are; these people who could be making a mega-packet in the corporate sector; these people who actually choose to work in largely under funded, under recognised workplaces; these people who seem to be so driven by principle that they dedicate their lives to righting the wrongs of the less powerful in our communities. I don’t believe we should collectively be put up as candidates for beatification but I do think that this sector of principle has an approach to life, equity, access and social justice other sectors motivated only by economic imperatives could learn from.

This conference did not disappoint. Odd, quirky bods abounded but these odd, quirky bods had plenty to say 'n share that was important, challenging and above all hopeful. A refreshing contribution to the body politic.

My camera as always came along with me. (click here to view)

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When I first embarked on this blog journey I did it for two reasons:

1. To experiment with the form and to see if it was something I could get in to
2. To keep up with the "Technoratti's" (formerly known as "The Jones's")

Enthusiasm, naivety & grande plans leads us down some colorful paths. This path has been littered with good intentions. But where lofty literary aims were crafted only the baubles of mortal flesh remain. I failed as a virile virtual correspondent. I failed even as an occasional commentator. Limp & mute is moi!

Perhaps this is the medium for the young or young at heart. Perhaps it the realm of the frustrated and/or misunderstood journalist. Although I have kept a personal journal since the age of fourteen the blog (I’m afraid to admit) has not grabbed my short & curlies nor has it captured a latent ADHD communication strain.

I will however persist and shimmy down a new path. Perhaps rather than employing the word I will adopt the image as my preferred mode of virtual communication. I am proud to say that my first publicly exhibited pictures will be showing at the Queen Victoria Women's Centre for the next week or so. It will be launched on Saturday 17th February 2007 by Kate Durham (wonderful Melbourne artist and refugee activist http://www.katedurham.com/). I am chuffed that my first public photographs are part of the exhibition “In It Together” which involved 350 Victorians, from 10 to 90 years old, talking about the rights & responsibilities important to them.

I close this current blog with a link to some photos I took on Xmas Day 2006. As of today great intentions return. I intend to add more photographs. This is the plan. But the reality may not match this plan so well made.

http://www.digitalkulcha.org/family/xmasWalk06/index.html

yours in ‘fine intentionedness”

toul@