Developing policy advice on new technology & tools for the Community Empowerment Strategy Division of CLG

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Collaboration - don't worry, it won't be necessary

Wed, 05/28/2008 - 09:58 — Simon Berry

Another restless night. Yesterday I met too many buzzy people than is good for one person in one day. My brain was fizzing.

Yesterday's keywords were openness, collaborative, bottom-up, user-driven etc etc

These words can send shivers down the spine, and rightly so. Proper collaboration can be very costly as is often not very successful. However, in the Web 2.0 world there is an opportunity to collaborate very much on your own terms, with a lot less effort and in some cases without knowing who it is you are collaborating with.

In the last couple of years I have done a sponsored cycle ride. I blogged my way from Land's End to John o' Groats in 2006 and 2007. Like many fundraisers today I registered with JustGiving so that my sponsors could donate securely online and GiftAid could be recovered. The JustGiving 'portal' allowed me to design a 'widget' for me to put on my blog. Here it is:

  • What's a widget? A widget is a rectangular block that you put on a website or blog. Through this 'block', this rectangular area, information and services can be delivered from the 'portal'. In the case of the JustGiving widget, the block contained the following information:

    • the name of the event
    • the amount donated so far against my target in a thermometer-type format
    • the last three comments that my sponsors had made
    • a menu button for additional information

    In addition, the widget included a 'donate now' button.

    I setup all this functionality and placed it on my own website for my own community in a totally self-service way. I collaborated in a sophisticated way, a collaboration that involve the exchange of money, with no human intervention.

    The process meant that I delivered and much better service to my community, the people visiting my blog, and JustGiving got its services closer to donors.

    What's the scope for Governments to collaborate with communities to deliver services in this way?

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