<incom> juha huuskonen on web 2.0 and ngos

[Geert Lovink]

Interesting contribution from a neighboring list, called IDC, run by 
Trebor Scholz. /Geert

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "juha huuskonen" <juhuu at juhuu.nu>
> Date: 27 May 2006 10:29:34 PM
> To: "IDC list" <idc at bbs.thing.net>
> Subject: Re: [iDC] Against Web 2.0
>
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> For the past two years, the theme of Pixelache festival
> (www.pixelache.ac) has been 'Dot Org Boom', referring
> to the same development as Web 2.0 but from a different
> perspective. 'Dot Org Boom' is proposing that the current
> wave of development is heading to non-profit direction,
> something that Web 2.0 promoters would probably not
> want to agree with.
>
> I came across the term in a book called 'How to change
> the world' by David Bornstein (www.howtochangetheworld.org).
> The title is cheesy and so is the book cover, but the content
> is pretty relevant and well written... The book is introducing
> social entrepreneurs from around the world and mostly
> focusing on the activities of Ashoka Foundation (www.ashoka.org)
> who have managed to figure out a very successful method for
> supporting the growth of small grassroot initiatives. In the
> book the term 'dot org boom' is referring to the fact that the
> amount of NGOs in the world has increased dramatically
> during the past 10-15 years (millions of new NGOs).
>
> Our version of Dot Org Boom consisted of independent media,
> open source community and NGOs. Considering the fact that
> all these three areas share the same basic principles - open,
> non-profit activities based on volunteer contributions and
> grassroot organisations - it's striking how little collaboration there
> has been between these areas. The tactical media/indymedia/activist
> networks used to be very different from the sourceforge/slashdot/geek
> camp and the NGOs were mostly left out of the loop, happily
> using their Microsoft tools. What I find essential in the Dot
> Org Boom is that these three components - open content,
> open tools, open organisation models - are starting to find
> each other. Web 2.0 people would like to ignore the organisation
> component of this transformation.
>
> We didn't have a chance to dig very deep into Dot Org Boom
> in the context of the festival but we managed to bring together
> a pretty interesting bunch of people. You can find more
> information and download the festival catalogue at
> http://www.pixelache.ac/2005/helsinki
>
> Some topics that appeared in the discussions were: trust,
> security, credibility and monopolies. It seems essential for an
> organisation/service/tool to maintain their image as the 'good guys',
> something that might become increasingly difficult for commercial
> services in future. One complex and important issue seems to be
> how to deal with monopolies, both in the case of commercial
> services like Google but also for projects like Wikipedia. The
> magic role of the 'benevolent dictators' like Jimbo Wales for
> Wikipedia or Linus Thorvarlds for Linux does not seem like
> a lasting solution.
>
> Best,
>
> Juha.
>
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