Thoughts from the Digital Inclusion Unconference

January 29th, 2010  |  Published in work related

We hosted an Unconference on Saturday 23rd January 2010 and i’ll be posting some stuff here and over on the ‘We Share Stuff‘ site as and when I get time.

The Digital Mentor Session

Digital mentors…hmm…Well they need to be ‘people people’, have a strong ear, ability to not force opinion, have patience, ‘get’ technology. Probably just a few there and it gets me thinking where are the people with these attributes right now? They’re out there doing the work already!, Independently in many cases (and often for free). I see the ‘seurgeons from the social media surgeries who don’t have the weight of targets and crap access and tools to bog them down. This freedom allows them to do their stuff and it works. Then I see others from the ‘black market’ of ICT twisting the guidelines (sometimes ditching them altogether) and doing what feels right and getting results. Then there’s those who don’t think twice when they’re helping a friend or colleague with a tech problem or issue. They just do it. Shit, I left my previous job delivering government funded, admin heavy, sometimes pointless courses, training and advice because I saw that we were only touching the tip of the iceberg when it came to using technology for learning and improving social capital. In fact, it managed to steer clear of the iceberg altogether on many occasions and that felt wrong.
So since the Media Trust have renamed their project ‘Community Voices’ it throws the ‘digital mentor’ definiton up in the air. Should it stay there? Not that it’s got any copyright attached to it or anything but it’s a shame that such a term becomes applied because the nature of the role is so varied and flexible. You ‘get’ it? yes can you share it? yes. well there you go.
So I suggest a different approach. One based on continuing the ‘black market’ ‘under the radar’ way of doing things. We don’t need to be called digital mentors and we don’t need any official guidelines, groups or websites – we know how to connect so lets just keep doing it our way? #bdyrg

Digital Mentors…hmm…Well they need to be ‘people people’, have a strong ear, ability to not force opinion, have patience, ‘get‘ technology. Probably just a few attributes there and it gets me thinking where are the people with these attributes right now? They’re out there doing the work already! Independently in many cases (and often for free). I see the ‘surgeons’ from the social media surgeries who don’t have the weight of targets and crap access / tools and red tape to bog them down. This freedom allows them to do their stuff and it works. Then I see others from the ‘black market‘ of ICT twisting the guidelines (sometimes ditching them altogether) and doing what feels right and getting results. Then there’s those who don’t think twice when they’re helping a friend or colleague with a tech problem or issue. They just do it. Shit, I left my previous job delivering government funded, admin heavy, sometimes pointless courses, training and advice because I saw that we were only touching the tip of the iceberg when it came to using technology for learning and improving social capital. In fact, it managed to steer clear of the iceberg altogether on many occasions and that felt wrong.

So since the Media Trust have renamed their project ‘Community Voices‘ it throws the ‘digital mentor’ definiton up in the air.

Should it stay there?

Not that it’s got any copyright attached to it or anything but it’s a shame that such a term becomes applied because the nature of the role is so varied and flexible.

You ‘get’ it?  yes can you share it? yes. well there you go.

So i’m all in favour of a certain approach. One based on continuing the ‘black market’ ‘under the radar’ way of doing things. We don’t need to be called digital mentors and we don’t need any official guidelines, groups or websites – we know what works and how to stay ahead of the game and we know how to connect so do we need to mess?

#bdyrgi

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