Videos, podcasts and apps
It's actually worth exploring all these functions in some detail.
Recently I've been working on a website featuring online tools for teaching English as a foreign language. Incredibly, most of the video and podcast tools and apps used by the teachers and students are free, easily downloaded onto laptops, tablets and smart phones. The apps are tools to help people hampered by language barriers to communicate more easily. And it occurred to me that it's only a small step taking these apps and tools from education and applying them to communties. I'll start to explore some of these apps in more details in later blogs, but suffice to say they help create and sustain communities, and these communities are the heart of the matter.
Communities of interest
So what does communities of interest mean? When using this term I refer specifically to people who live in a local community or neighbourhood. People with mental health issues, disabilities of some sort, older people who can't get out, or community activists who seek a better life for all. The in-term among local government employees is co-production. Nevertheless, all digital communities have the similar aspirations of collective problem solving and collaboration and you can just as easily be talking about English language students, businesses or charities. The template suits all.
In England and Wales, the reforms in health and social care have put unbearable pressure on professionals - and the people they serve - to deliver services to local people efficiently and more cheaply. More for less, is the term used. Of course, it's nonsense, but the reality is that people will need to start fending for themselves as local services are cut and professionals' workloads become overstretched and harder to deliver.
Working together
As a result, there is a new emphasis on community and collaboration. Working together. But as this community is at the heart of the evolving social landscape, how can it deliver what’s needed in the future?
The idea is that digital social networks will create vital connections that help people develop relationships within their communities. For health and social care (think doctors, nurses, meals on wheels, home visits to the elderly etc), this needs to be organised and managed.
Digital story telling - let the people talk
Using social media for community, consultation and service development has huge advantages, so long as we engage in more egalitarian forms of conversations with the people around us - and let the people talk about themselves and what they want. A problem shared is a problem solved, and most people in their own communities are the best ones to solve those problems.
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter
The overwhelming means of communications on these digital networks is through the written word, texting, blogging, then come images, videos and audio podcasts. Blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter updates, Pinterest pins. They are all forms of content through digital story telling and conversations.
People and their communities have stories to tell and the best way to engage is to listen and act on what they have to say. Their dialogue is now through social networks and increasingly on mobile phones.
Technology – and social media in particular – is changing the way everyone communicates. That's large and small organisations with their employees, partners, stakeholders and customers.
The test for us all is how we use the new digital tools and how we manage and teach communities to use them in a sustainable way. A way that will build digital communities of interest, while solving the painful issues of government cuts in funding and closures of local services vital for people to live relatively enjoyable lives.
Helping professionals to help themselves and the people who they live among; it's an attractive proposition - and we can make it work. In the next post I'll try to answer this last conundrum, while in future posts I'll examine some of the apps that are suitable for using in your professional and personal life.
And, of course, I'll post a few blogs to promote clarity in writing for bloggers.
Bye for now
Andrew
