activist web 2.0 other models

I attended the Allied Media Conference in June 2007 and went to a workshop on Movement Technology Collaboratives. These are my notes.

presenters included: Jessamyn Sabbag, Samhita Mukopadhyay, Toki Wright

groups:
MyBloc.net
Future5000.com
Youth Media Council

These organizations work with the “Youth” movement in the US and globally. One of the issue that they face is that many organizers for various organizations switch jobs, move to other organizations, etc and it’s difficult for individual youth organizers to maintain and develop a political identity and theory of change outside of the organizations that they work(ed) for. It’s also hard for networks to develop outside of non-profit industrial complex b/c so many of the youth orgs are connected to this.

The area where these technology groups are not focusing is on collaborative work spaces. The features that they discussed include:

blogs, rss feeds, online chatting, photos

mybloc.net/sections/view/about_us

MyBloc.net and YouthMediaCouncil.org are designed and maintained by Tumis http://tumis.com/

#########
Future 5000.com is the online version of the future5000 project which sought to create a directory of all the youth organizing in the US/globally? B/c the organizations and people involved change so frequently, a print directory soon was out of date so the webspace is to create a live directory which also demonstrates networks between the organizations, issues, regions, etc. “A yellow pages of youth organizing”

Future5000.com is a project of Generational Alliance,
www.youngpeoplefor.org/about/partners/

#########
Presenters also spoke to tech savyness of youth movement organizers and the need to work with that not against. Email is not as big as myspace, texting, etc. How to balance these communication channels with secure, movement centric technology.

Let me know any questions. – brenna