I think they can collaborate with other institutions but aren’t great at collaborating with the general public as they have to bend and be flexible to what the public desires. This always comes with great difficulty to institutions. An example is why you see so few institutional websites with the opportunity to comment on articles (please commenting system below)
So I have been asked to present at this and I need your thoughts so that i can formulate my presentation, a friend said to just take a bottle of wine and a bag of crisps, which would clearly be metaphors for Institution (wine) and community at large (crisps)
It last the end of the case, the leads had evaporated, dried up like a summer well. The mud was dryed and cracked just like his old fashioned ideas of good and bad. He was so far out of fashion he was coming back in again, but he didn’t know that and neither did the hicks in the God foresacken hole they called a town in these parts.
John Egan – Director of Aurora Media who created the very impressive new Liverpool Vision “It’s Liverpool” brand campaign
Patrick Fox, Manager at Tenantspin, a community TV station produced by Fact and a community housing association.
The event was based around Marth Lane Fox’s visit to Liverpool as she is the Nation’s Digital Champion and has been encouraging people to get on line – with the fantastic Give an Hour initiative. This is a really great idea as I want more people to see the benefits of getting online as proved when we ran the day long How Why DIY event in Aug 2010.
The democratising role of the Web
Liverpool has a population of about 440,000 with 100,000 of those not having daily access to the internet. Information is power and having access to that information can give the individual more power over their lives and over the lives of their children. That is the Digital Divide that is faced in Liverpool and laughingly isn’t being addressed by any of the councillors or local officials, bringing Martha Lane Fox to town really didn’t resolve any of the issues faced by the people that need access to the internet most. On a recent visit to a Merseyside school the teacher there told me that the pupils hang around the school longer so they can use the computers and internet for homework, it is great that these children get access but not all schools and pupils will be so lucky.
During the lecture Martha mentioned that Microsoft are making recycled PC’s available for £95 for those on benefits. But as Richard Smedly rightly pointed out that we throw away millions of PC’s every year that should be recycled with free yes free software and passed on to those in need. Maybe some money should be spent on helping small organisations do just this especially as about 1/2 of adults not online hit 3 or more deprivation domains, then this issue needs to be addressed.
One final comment on this lecture is that the choice of panellist was bewildering, absolutely bewildering with more sense coming from the audience than from at least one of the panel members.
Do you think this Lecture contributes to the debate around democratising the Internet?
“Although we often think that we are doing a great job at being engaging invariably we aren’t, without knowing it we automatically put in place barriers, be this for an online or physical project. We too often play by the traditional rules.”
So can institutions collaborate?
