digital divide

Currently, technology is creating opportunities for people to use their home or nearby library branch or community center to find out about, initiate or respond to court or other law related needs, obligations or requirements, communicate and exchange documents with their legal service provider or others in or associated with the legal system less expensively, using less time and effort, without having to travel to a central city, and with less time away from work or other necessary resources. This can be especially important for the elderly, persons with disabilities, persons with limited financial means, and those who can’t afford to miss time from work for reasons of financial need or jeopardizing their employment. Similarly, a person with limited mobility or hearing may be able to get information electronically about his or her rights as a tenant; a victim of domestic violence can learn on the Internet what she can do and in fact be able to start the legal process of protecting herself. The courts and other parts of the justice system can operate more productively and less expensively, making court and legal records and information more readily available, and receive filings, fees, documents and information, all electronically.

However, the means of using these very possibilities also create the risk of worsening old barriers or erecting new barriers to access, causing greater disparities. While the opportunities described above seem positive, these innovations assume access to a computer, reasonable proficiency at using them and their necessary software programs, reading capability, fluency in English and sufficient phone or cable and electricity availability and capacity at affordable cost to support sufficient connections and streams of information and interactivity. Without all of that, those who have the tools and means, the proficiency and the necessary infrastructure available get further ahead, and those without fall further behind in having the justice system work for them. The lack of equality gets greater, not less.

On December 4, 2004, the Washington State Supreme Court became the first court in the United States, perhaps the world, to formally adopt by Court Order, a set of authoritative principles to guide the use of technology in its justice system. The stated purpose was to ensure that the planning, design, development, implementation and use of new technologies and the management of existing technologies by the justice system and associated organizations protects and advances the fundamental right of equal access to justice. Over a three-and-a-half year period, the Washington State Access to Justice Board drew on the input and involvement of a diverse group of approximately 200 people and organizations from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to develop formal Access to Justice Technology Principles to serve as the practical operating norm for justice system organizations and entities throughout the state.

The Access to Justice Technology Principles broadly define access to justice as the meaningful opportunity to: (1) assert a claim or defense and to create, enforce, modify, or discharge a legal obligation in any forum; (2) acquire the procedural or other information necessary to improve the likelihood of a just result; (3) participate in the conduct of proceedings as a witness or juror; and (4) acquire information about the activities of courts or other dispute resolution bodies. Access to justice, moreover, must include timeliness, affordability and transparency.

Briefly paraphrased, the six Access to Justice Technology Principles are:

1. Requirement of access to justice: Introduction of technology or changes in the use of technology must not reduce access or participation and, whenever possible, shall advance such access and participation;

2. Technology and just results: The justice system shall use and advance technology to achieve the objective of a just process by impartial and well-informed decision makers and reject, minimize, or modify any use that reduces the likelihood of achieving that objective;

3. Openness and privacy: Technology should be designed to meet the dual responsibilities of the justice system of being open to the public and protecting personal privacy;

4. Assuring a neutral forum: All appropriate means shall be used to ensure the existence of neutral, accessible, and transparent forums which are compatible with new technologies

5. Maximizing public awareness and use: The justice system should promote ongoing public knowledge and understanding of the tools afforded by technology to access justice

6. Best practices: Those governed by these principles shall utilize “best practices” procedures or standards to guide the use of technology so as to protect and enhance access to justice and promote equality of access and fairness.

A broad-based interdisciplinary implementation strategy group then developed a set of practical strategies and initiatives to transform the principles from the words of a court-ordered statement of vision into a pervasive operational reality through the state justice system. Once the principles are truly institutionalized in justice organizations, then, as a matter of ordinary routine, the design for every new technology project would incorporate accessibility and usability and increase transparency of and information about the justice system for all users, especially those who are or may be excluded or underserved as well as those experiencing any barrier to accessing justice system services. Essential actions include: (1) Development and maintenance of a Web-based Resource Bank; (2) Initial and ongoing communication to and training for justice system and associated agencies about the ATJ Technology Principles and available resources for implementation; (3) Demonstration projects; (4) Public awareness and usable information. Additional requirements address policy-level governance and guidance as well as ensuring the continuing relevance, effectiveness and use of the Principles over time.

It is interesting that community networks are frequently referred to as technological artefacts (Wikipedia, 2006) and appear to be understood in terms of the connectivity they give to ICT rather than the links they facilitate within communities. Yet in his seminal text on the emergence of ‘new’, i.e. ICT based, community networks, Schuler explains how the term ‘community networks’ was a sociological concept – that referred to community communication patterns and relationships (1996) – long before the emergence of the community bulletin boards of the late 1970s (Morino, 1994), i.e. the forerunners for the web-based community networks of the 1990s onwards (Kubicek & Wagner, 1998).

Establishing what lies at the heart of community networking, i.e. the purpose and nature of the relationships within communities and the processes of communication, is central to understanding community. Generating knowledge of what shapes and energizes community life by making connections and interacting with people of diverse values and belief systems is pivotal to developing effective community networks. In this respect the effectiveness of community networks is understood in terms of how they support and sustain community communications, relationships and activities.

An example of how knowledge of community networking in its broadest sense can be generated and how this knowledge might inform the development of community networks is illustrated by the Community Network Analysis (CNA) project in the Poets Corner community of Brighton and Hove, UK. Early in the project a community profile (Hawtin, Hughes & Percy-Smith, 1994) was conducted to develop a picture of community assets, community needs and community relationships. Interestingly, the 104 groups, clubs, associations, centres, organisations, etc often interpret their shared social environment in different ways. Acknowledging the existence of such diversity is a central part of beginning to understand and work with it as a source of community strength rather than community threat.

Analysis of the community infrastructure reveals 8 main clusters of groups, clubs, etc and 4 smaller clusters. These clusters, or affiliation networks, are organised by a parent organisation, e.g. community associations and places of worship. Affiliation appears to be based around organisational support mechanisms and the availability of physical space. A number of isolated nodes or didactic networks were also identified, e.g. the two schools are exemplars of a didactic network, although both are keen to develop stronger ties within the community.

‘Informal’ network structures in the community are altogether more open and dynamic than their ‘formal’ counterparts but are also transient in nature. Familial or friendship ties usually predominate and networking often occurs in public spaces, e.g. Stoneham Park, local pubs and coffee shops, or serendipitous street meetings. This agora ‘effect’ provides opportunity for knowledge exchange, comfort and mutually supportive transactions.

Informal social network exchanges tend to be self-organising and mutually reinforcing, falling into one of two categories. 1) Spontaneous, e.g. someone’s cat has gone missing and the neighbours organise a search of the locality; neighbours leave bags of good quality but unwanted clothes/toys on the door steps of families new to the area as a welcoming gesture; groups of people pop in to each other’s houses for coffee and a chat – reinforcing and developing social bonds. 2) Organised but with no formal membership, e.g. networks of baby-sitters and parents requiring ‘sitters’ evolve through the local grapevine; a curry club – where participants try new curry recipes is organised at irregular intervals by email; a book club – run along much the same lines as the curry club is organised by mobile phone; or key holder networks among neighbours in the same street – in which spare keys are cut and distributed among trusted neighbours.

Our study reveals that both network types play a significant role in developing relationships of trust and social cohesion in the community. The communication technologies that people feel comfortable with are increasingly being used to support both network links and exchanges. If community networks are to support the diversity of social realities in community then they must provide safe and welcoming spaces that encourage and facilitate participation and engagement. Enabling people to tell their stories and interact with one another in ways meaningful to them and in comfortable environments is central to effective community networking.

A prototype community communication space (CCS) being developed as part of the CNA project attempts to create such spaces. By working with the community to build both the context and the content for the CCS we have been asked to support video and audio podcasting, digital story-telling, digital art, poetry and music. Local communication forums are being established to support the face-to-face forums of community development/building activities. Blogs, wikis and other social software such as social networking applications are also being explored for potential community benefits.

The graphic , draws on Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory (1995) to illustrate current stages of the CCS diffusion in Poets Corner.

Working from the centre outwards the first ring represents the Poets Corner Residents Society’s (PCRS) invitation to CNA, and the subsequent invitation from their executive committee to work in partnership with them to map and improve community communications. Much of this period was spent getting to know people in the community, building trust, raising awareness and supporting the activities of PCRS and other community groups. A group of enthusiastic project advocates emerged as CCS innovators. With their assistance the project became grounded in and supportive of community activities and needs.

Slowly but surely trust and respect developed between the partners. A number of community groups displayed interest in the project and began collaborating. The second ring shows early adopters within the community infrastructure. By this time, the project was participating in and supporting the planning and organisation of a second summer festival and family fun day. The third ring illustrates the resultant increased involvement from the community infrastructure and the beginning of some involvement from local residents. We describe this as second stage early adoption activity.

During the project the CNA partnership has been raising awareness of the potential of the CCS and interest within the community is on the increase. We are now in what Rogers’ would describe as the trial and evaluation phases of community assessment. Whether or not the CCS will be adopted, and can be sustained beyond the funding of the project will depend largely on the community themselves. The CNA team will continue to collaborate with the community, but our long term objective has always been to design and build a prototype CCS in participation with the community and to explore how the community will take ownership of and sustain that space.

The "glocal" dimension relates to specific areas of economic development models, such as local productive arrangements (LPAs), industrial and sectoral clusters (from the electronics district in Tokyo to software and IT-related hubs in Bangalore).

It is clear that the combination of local and global, concrete and universal, remote and present, material and immaterial, tangible and intangible are not clearly demarcated in the glocal development model. Other classic distinctions also become blurred, such as private, public, the "third sector" (or philanthropic) and academic or techno-scientific. Telecenters, public spaces in Third World countries that offer free access to the Web as well as other social and educational services are examples of new glocal development tools.

These ICT-enabled hubs of social and economic engineering also tend to create and design new social artifacts, thus opening opportunities for self-knowing, lifelong learning and employability.

Mediatic capitalism is a new regime of capital accumulation regulated by the value aggregation of knowledge-creating activities and the development of intangible assets (brands, consumer habits, technological standards and service-based value chains). This new form of capital accumulation has also led, for policy purposes, to the increasingly relevant clustering of creative industries. Telecenters can also play a role in the production of images (and self-representations) in peripheral regions of the world, given appropriate regulatory and techno-economic incentives and subsidies.

The term “mediatic” stresses not only the growing role of media (ICTs or information and communication technologies) but also the key function of intermediaries in the organization of production and distribution networks.

Infomediaries, regulators and knowledge-based business consortia and local informational clusters are examples of economic agents and institutions defined by their skills in the production and management of information, communication, knowledge and cultural networks in value chains, power dynamics and organizational structures.

This perspective requires new approaches to governance in the context of rapid globalization and emerging organizational semiotics and new forms of finance that value social, cultural and intellectual capital.

For the peripheral nation-states of the world system, a new threat emerges: there is a growing concern not only with gaps in technology and knowledge, but also with the emergence of a digital divide within developing societies. On the other hand, neo-illuminists preach about the creation of development opportunities led by new technologies (such as the infamous US$100 computer proposed by MIT´s Nicholas Negroponte).

Digital emancipation was proposed as a conceptual horizon for policy-making related to glocal development in December 2005 at the first international conference on digital emancipation, held in Brazil by the City of Knowledge at the University of São Paulo. Human development as emancipation definitely places the burden of action in the local dimension - stressing traditional and informal knowledge whenever possible, so that human development under mediatic capitalism can lead to sustainability, identity and civic intelligence. These characteristics have often been highlighted by development funding agencies, which are increasingly conscious of the rising importance of glocal economics for the appropriate design and implementation of development policies. Micro and nanoeconomics may in this context be more relevant than classic macro and microeconomics.

This pattern could be applied in urban areas and in rural areas where communities have suffered years of economic and social stagnation. Indigenous media is different from media that is produced by and for other underserved groups such as ethnic and sexual minorities, women, and youth. For one thing, indigenous people often don’t know how to engage the media from their village far from electricity, telephones, press, or radio or television stations. For another thing, the knowledge that is intrinsic to their culture may be localized. It may be centuries old, embodied in stories or other non-written forms and endangered.

Information is essential for development and it is now urgent to empower indigenous people with media technologies and knowledge. There are many activities which indigenous farmers could undertake to help improve their lives with better access to media. If, for example, the farmers of Chiapas in Southeast Mexico could sell their products directly to the companies they could improve their economic situation. Currently intermediaries buy coffee in poor villages for a few coins which is then sold to big companies at great profit. Access to the market depends on knowledge and the technological means to capitalize on it.

We know that this is not only a problem for the poor. Many people around the world have problems related to lack of media access. The fact that large corporations control the media becomes a matter of life and death because the media is the de facto gatekeeper of important information related to health and safety. Indigenous people often lack the power, knowledge and technology to produce their own information and their own media. The Internet could provide a new way to communicate. For example, in the south and south-east areas of México, there are new Internet access centers but these are only for people who already know how to use computers and the Internet, knowledge that many indigenous people don’t have.

Indigenous Media simultaneously addresses many needs of marginalized indigenous groups. Thus embracing this pattern entails education and training, policy, resources (time, money, people, for example) in addition to access to the technology itself. An e-mail campaign or a panel discussion on a radio show can help organize a campaign against a group of intermediaries or to denounce bad legislators. In Mexico's rural communities such as Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca radio stations managed by indigenous farmers and satellite gateways to the Internet can make the difference between intimidation and free speech. Some notable examples from around the world include Radio Tambuli Radio Network in the Philippines, the Deadly Mob aboriginal organization of Alice Springs, Australia, and the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation in Alaska.

Non-indigenous people can play a role in support of this pattern. They can organize training programs in the 3,100 new access points are installed in the municipalities around Mexico and/or in Internet cafes. Many institutions and international agencies whose programs include technology in rural areas can donate equipment, access to the Internet (maybe via satellite gateways), and Internet streaming. NGOs with training and learning programs can work with indigenous farmers and others to learn how to apply media access technology. Mino of the Ashaninka native people in Peru who was instrumental in establishing Internet access for his people stresses that indigenous people must not allow non-indigenous people to monopolize information. For that reason, he and others in his group carefully observed every technical installation that was carried out in his village.

Unfortunately the pattern language and other educational tools are not available in native languages and are useless to most indigenous people. Many of these stakeholders have experience with ICT who can share their stories of success and failure, but they can't express their thoughts in English.

Radio, print media, television, all have potential to help shape public opinion. When rural farmers acquire Internet skills and can access media, they can apply this knowledge to create their own information and communication systems. Ultimately, indigenous people can promote success by communicating with other indigenous people around the world about their experiences.

Arts of Resistance, Alternative Media, Roles in Media, Influencing the Design of Information Technologies, Mobile ICT Learning Facilities for 3rd World Communities, International Networks of Alternative Media, Control of One's Representation, Solidarity Networks, Ordinary Protagonists and Everyday Life

Everyday conversation, though often purposeful, is informal; it doesn't rely on an agenda, defined roles, or precisely delineated rules of interacton. To overcome the unpredictabilty of this type of human interaction, systematic rules have been created to facilitate purposeful group meetings whose objective is to produce collective decisions. One of the earliest set of "parliamentary procedures" was formulated in 1876 by Henry Robert in a treatise entitled "Roberts Rules of Order". "Roberts Rules", as they have come to be known, have been widely adopted as a means to fairly and equitably conduct the business of group meetings and provide a method to ensure that all parties within the group have the opportunity to participate in the decision making process. At the same time Roberts Rules ensure that no minority interest can exert undue influence on the process.

The advent of the Internet has provided an opportunity to combine the democratic principles (such as Roberts Rules of Order), with modern interactive communication technologies, to provide new web-based meeting facilitation systems. Ideally, online deliberations systems would allow people to come together as peers in an "on-line" environment and conduct "official" business meetings without being present in the same physical location. The plethora of online discussion systems, especially when contrasted to the scarcity of deliberative systems suggests the difficulty of this enterprise.

While working in and with a team of students at The Evergreen State College the authors of this pattern were involved in the development of eLiberate a working prototype developed using Linux, MySql, Apache, and PHP. The application provides facilities to create groups and to create and schedule meetings. Then, using written (typed) rather than spoken input, the system facilitates meeting by coordinating user interactions (such as making motions), conducting and tallying votes, and providing an archive facility for official minutes.

Online deliberation substitutes one set of advantages and disadvantages for the set that face-to-face deliberation offers. In general the broad criteria of either approach include access to the process, efficacy of the process (including individual involvement and process as a whole, and the context (including legal requirements, etc.). Of course these criteria overlap to some degree and influence each other.

Although face-to-face deliberation is basically "low-tech," physically getting to meetings may involve costly, "high-tech" travel. Then, once physically present at a face-to-face meeting, effective participation depends on the skills (including, for example, how to use Roberts Rules of Order), intentions and knowledge of the individuals. It also depends (of course!) on the skills, intentions and knowledge of the other participants in the meeting — including the chair.

By making access to a computer (connected to the Internet) a prerequisite to participation online deliberation adds an access hurdle comprised of cost, geography, and computer fluency. Depending on the characteristics of the potential attendees this barrier may be more than offset by the advantages that online deliberations could provide. If, for example, the meeting attendees are drawn from western Europe and the United States, it is likely the case that costs associated with computer communication will be less than transportation costs. As a matter of fact, online deliberation makes the prospect of more-or-less synchronous discussions / deliberations among people around the world possible, although here the tyranny of time zones and humankind's intrinsic circadian rhythms (which encourage us to sleep at night and stay awake in the daylight hours) become a mitigating factor: making decisions while many of the attendees are sleeping is one formula for dysfunctional meetings. The very fact that worldwide meetings become possible however provides an enormously fertile ground for civil society opportunities. (See, for example, the World Citizen Parliament pattern.)

Knowledge of the topics under discussion, knowledge of the process (Roberts Rules of Order, for example) and command of the language(s) being used in the discussion can also be obstacles to effective and equitable face-to-face as well online deliberation. Online environments, however, have the potential of alleviating, at least to some degree, some of the disadvantages that seem to be intrinsic to face-to-face settings. In the eLiberate example mentioned above attendees can select a "language pack" so that the appropriate Roberts Rules process word or phrase (such as "I second the motion") will be presented in the attendee's own language. Note that this is not machine ("on-the-fly") translation. Moreover it has no bearing whatsoever on the content of the meeting — what the participants actually contributed — it determines only which of several equivalent language sets of the Roberts Rules "meta-language" is displayed to each user. The possibility for automatic "machine translation" to be put to work on all attendee input so that attendee only saw input to the meeting in their own language. Of course machine translation is imperfect at best — and may always remain so. Try, for example, transforming some verbiage into another language and back again via a machine translation system on the web. The result generally bears no resemblance to the original. On the other hand, translation by humans is not perfect either; relying as it does on the skills of the human translator. For those reasons it may be well-advised for reasons of transparency and integrity of the process to make both (or all) original and machine-translated language versions available for inspection with the other meeting contributions in the database. (Today as I write this a transcript of an interview with me appeared in a Sao Paulo newspaper: my utterance "couldn't" was transcribed as "could" — an easy mistake that totally inverts the meaning!) So, while free and reliable electronic translation is desirable, high-quality human translation could be inserted into the process as appropriate. This could only be as "simultaneous" and as accurate as the skills and availability of the human translator interposed within the process would allow. The needs discussed above for multiple versions and for long-term storage are appropriate in the case of human translation as well.

The online environment offers other potential advantages. One obvious benefit is that only the actions that are allowable within the deliberation process at that time are displayed to the individual participants. This, in theory, can help reduce problems that are commonplace with meeting attendees who are not thoroughly familiar with the Roberts Rules conventions). Online systems can also provide online "help systems." Within eLiberate, for example, users can view descriptions of how and when specific actions are used. Also, as previously mentioned, a meeting transcript can be automatically created and votes can automatically be tabulated as well.

Forces:

Many processes are too complex to be understood in detail by one person.
Performance on a task is generally a logarithmic function of time on task.
A person's time is limited.
Complex systems are typically designed and built by decomposition.
Systems to automate, semi-automate, or coordinate are generally designed by people who are not the people who actually do the tasks.
Designs can never anticipate all contingencies.
Human beings can negotiate to solve novel coordination problems via conversation.
People find conversation in the service of finding and solving problems rewarding.
People are subject to forming "in-groups" and "out-groups."
If "in-groups" and "out-groups" are formed, rather than negotiating a solution to a problem that is globally optimal, each group will try to "win" by forcing the solution that is optimal for their subfunction.

Examples:

Historically, many organizations have recognized the need for such informal conversational ties and have provided both special places (Officer's Club; Traditional Pub; Company Cafeterias) and events (Company Picnics; Religious Retreats; Holiday Parties; Clubs) to facilitate such interchanges. As organizations attempt integration across ever wider scales however, providing appropriate venues becomes increasingly challenging.
In some cases, two related functions report to a single manager and the manager may serve as a communication bridge. Clearly, however, in complex organizations, formal management methods alone will be insufficient for coordination across all the boundaries.
When links in a processing chain do not converse, inefficiency results. For example, telecommunications company Customer Service Reps gave out credit card numbers to business customers. However, they had to get these numbers from the accounting department. The customer service reps were only allowed to make outbound calls between 12 and 1. The accounting department generally had lunch between 12 and 1. As a result, it was often many days before customers were able to begin using their business accounts. The accounting department and the customer service reps also disliked each other, had no informal contact, and when other coordination problems arose, generally blamed each other.

The same general difficulty arises in attempting to deal with any complex problem; e.g., attempting to voluntarily and democratically facilitate social change. For instance, in the pattern, "Community of Communities" it is possible for various communities to develop plans that inadvertently interfer with each other. That is why it is useful, on a regular basis, to have conversations that cross community boundaries.

At IBM Research, I used to play a lot of tennis with other IBMers including an inter-company league. Here, I met someone in the corporate tax department named Frank.
I also used a system which returned the abstracts of scientific and technical articles that contained key-words of interest. Such systems return many false positives. One in particular had nothing whatever to do with my interests; it was about a new federal program that allowed highly profitable companies to trade tax credits with companies that were losing money. Instead of throwing this in the trash, because I had had conversations with Frank, I forwarded him the abstract. He looked into this program and saved a lot of money for IBM. This case illustrates that ideally even people with no obvious process connection should be able to converse informally.
In planning the first Universal Usability Conference (ACM SIGCHI), it was necessary to delegate various functions to various parties. We attempted to plan ahead of time by standard tools such as budgets and project timelines. A weekly conference call proved crucial in allowing us to identify and solve unanticipated problems effectively and efficiently.
In WorldJam (an on-line 3 day company-wide electronic meeting for all IBMers), moderators and facilitators used Babble (an electronic blended synchronous/asynchonous chat) and Sametime (a synchronous chat system) as backchannels to collectively solve problems and coordinate information among jam topics.
In Hanna Pavillion, a children's psychiatric hospital, each change of shift is marked by a short joint staff meeting in which critical issues are discussed so that a continuity of knowledge persists across shift boundaries (common in most medical settings). In addition, at least some people work double or rotating shifts and get to know people from various shifts. There are ample opportunties for informal conversation during the day as well as special outings. Then, staff members can coordinate treatment for a specific child across the boundaries of profession and shift.

Additional Reviewers/Editors: Catalina Danis, Alison Lee, David Ing, Ian Simmonds
Image of Babble courtesty of: "Visual by www.PDImages.com"

Although we have had some strong success with these tools, their deployment--particularly in the field of education--has not been easy. In the educational context, we first have to work with community members to find a cultural practice that can be simulated. In the case of Native American practices some of the best examples in terms of ethnomathematics turn out to be sacred practices that cannot be simulated (eg Navajo sand painting, Shoshone whirling disks). Second, we have to make sure the cultural practice is recognized by the youth -- several African examples were questioned because by teachers who said African American children would see them more as dusty museum artifacts than as something they had cultural ownership of. Third we have to satisfy the requirements of standard curricula -- many interesting examples of ethnomathematics (Eulerian paths in pacific Islander sand drawings, fractals in African architecture, etc.) are difficult to use because they are outside of the standard curriculum. Fourth the software support must be easy for teachers to use -- many math teachers (particularly those serving large minority populations) do not have ready access to good quality computers for their students, and do not have good technolgical training. The students must be provided with cultural background information and tutorials, and the teachers must be provided with lesson plans and examples of use.

Community Indicators [link to Community and Civic Indicators pattern] can provide an important tool for monitoring current trends in a community. However, we will usually be interested in the values of these indicators in the future, not just the present - and which actions will result in more desirable outcomes as measured by the community indicators. Simulation and modeling can provide a powerful tool for informing such discussions, particularly if the results from the simulation can be presented using the same indicators as selected in a participatory Community and Civic Indicators project. For example, the summary graphic for this pattern shows the population densities in the Puget Sound region in Washington State in 2025 given the current land use and transportation plans, as projected by the UrbanSim simulation system. The results of the work should be made available using the web or printed reports. Using the web has the advantage that definitions of indicators, documentation, and related information can be conveniently linked together. Supporting public access to running the simulation, as well as the results, might be provided in several different ways, depending on the complexity and size of the simulation and input data. Particularly for complex simulations, with substantial data requirements, accessing a simulation hosted on a server via a web interface is a good technique. Smaller simulations might be downloaded and run on individual's computers. This is in general not an easy pattern to use. In addition to developing the set of indicators (including careful definitions and documentation), a simulation of the phenomenon of interest must exist or be developed, including the necessary data and calibration to apply it in the given community. For the example used here (land use and transportation), this typically requires that the local or regional government agency in charge of land use and transportation planning either undertake the simulation work itself, or be willing to work closely with another organization that does so. The game SimCity demonstrates that many people -- including grade school children -- can be highly engaged by what might have been thought to be a dry topic, namely urban planning. While games such as SimCity can provide valuable inspiration and interaction ideas, there are key differences between such games and the simulations suggested in this pattern. First, this pattern is concerned with producing simulations of actual phenomena, for example, simulating a specific, real, urban area, with the intent of producing useful forecasts of its long-term development to inform public deliberation and debate. Second, the interaction techniques available to its users should expose only the actions and "policy levers" available to real citizens and governments (for the urban simulation example, such as building light rail systems or changing zoning). Users of these simulations can't simply declare that an area will be redeveloped (or bring in Godzilla); rather, all they can do is change relevant policies in a scenario in hopes of influencing people in the simulated environment to redevelop the area and residents to move there. Potential challenges to the result include challenges to the accuracy and reliability of the simulation.

The ability of people to form effective "Open Action and Research Networks" is critical to the success of any attempt at significant social and environmental amelioration. It is also an approach that is only now being explored. For that reason, the concept — and this pattern — reflect the uncertainty and ambiguity that is inherent in the situation.

As we have said before, most of the daunting problems that we face today are large and complex. Grappling with large and complex problems is invariably best served when addressed by many people working together. Indeed this is often the case as each "stakeholder" in any situation can be said to be "working" on the problem. Yet each person and organization working on the problem has a unique orientation which can be at odds with others. "Orientation" is a broad term that includes reward structures; goals, tactics, and strategies; areas of interests; obligations and allegiances; values and norms, status, legitimacy, and power; and ultimately, the very language that the community uses to discuss the issues. Consider, for example, the wide range of people who are working to minimize the negative effects of global climate change, or what Margaret Keck calls an "ecology of agents." These people include scientists, activists, inventers, “green” business people, educators, politicians, and “ordinary” people among others, and these people are as often as not members of other organizations and networks with diverse goals and varying resources and abilities to influence others.

It is against and within this complex environment that the stakeholder players must act / interact. This diverse group of people — of continually shifting size, shape, orientation and modus operandi — can scarcely be called a "team" since teams (particularly in sports) have a single objective. It is clear that many of the "players" working in these new "open networks" have similar objectives, working for example, for social and environmental ameliorization, and these players will come from a multitude of communities: some are interested in research, some action, some the creation of policy, some physical or material changes right now, while others are interested in abstract goals to be attained in the indeterminate future. In the worst case, the diversity of the players destroys the team. Ideally the diversity is the source of its strength. (Indeed diversity of thinking is essential to effective strategy [See Strategic Capacity pattern].)

According to Ganz, "the task of devising strategy in complex, changing environments may require interaction among team members like the performance of a jazz ensemble. As a kind of distributed cognition, it may require synthesizing skills and information beyond the ken of any one individual, making terms of that interaction particularly important." Nearly opposite to the "ensemble" idea is the impossible vision of "herding cats" in which each "cat" is totally unconcerned about the doings of the other "cats."

The networks that this pattern must address vary tremendously. At one end of the scale there are networks with few members and resources, short duration, and informal procedures. At the other end are networks like the LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) Network that was started in 1980, involves 26 sites in the US, and over 1,800 scientists and students. Although the LTER Network is fairly well financed (by the National Science Foundation) and is more formal and less diverse than some groups, the networks on both ends of the scale do share many points in common befitting their structure as networks of semi-autonomous peers.

Some of the questions that this "network approach" should ultimately address are as follows:

• How can differences of opinion be "managed" — i.e. encouraged to some degree, while not allowing them to become destructive?
• How is coordination and cooperation accomplished without coercion?
• How can we cooperatively evolve useful modes of organization and engagement that are especially suited for these new environments and ensembles?
• How can people maintain respect for allies who have other perspectives and capitalize effectively on the diversity of the ensemble?
• How do efforts survive personnel change by ensuring that relevant information, including facts, “lessons learned” and intriguing opportunities are made available to new members?
• How can environmental scientists and other types of researchers (including social scientists) conduct research that meets the demands of their profession and the needs of the communities they are working with?
• How are conflicts and misunderstandings over short-term and long-term goal reconciled?

Each organizational type (and each organization!) has its own orientation which encompasses its thinking and acting and it is this orientation which is likely to be challenged when working with others.

Shared concerns and principles help bring people together into groups, organizations and networks. Beyond that, however, other things are also critical. The individuals within the network should be able to work with other people to solve problems collectively and to help maintain cordiality and integrity within the group. Also because the membership of these networks is dynamic, there must be ways to bring in new members easily. Besides shared values and shared ideas about the roles, interests and constraints of the other players, there should be shared goals. Goals and other forms of collective, documented statements or plans, however symbolic they might be can provide coherence over time.

Margaret Keck's work in Brazil provides an excellent example of the power that these documents can have. In 1971, the Soluçãao Integrada (Integrated Solution) was included as the sanitation component of the metropolitan development plan. Although it was abandoned by the following government and replaced by a more expensive, less popular and more environmentally degrading plan called SANEGRAN. According to Keck, the very existence of the plan made it "possible for non-technical social and political actors to challenge public authority on water policy." In fact, in more striking terms, the plan, "Like a shadow government existing in counter point to sitting ones, the plan has functioned as a shadow sanitation plan for Sao Paulo for more than a quarter century, making critical action more possible" (Keck, 2001).

Girard and Stark (2006) point out the importance of agreeing on general philosophical aims among disparate groups without descending into micromanagement or debate. Sharing of ideas, documents and information was the also general aim of the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable, that met monthly in Washington, DC, in the 1990s to help build a general public interest policy for the Internet and other informaiton technologies. The LTER Network, as a body of researchers, places data in a central postion for their work and has developed specific formats to encourage the develop and sharing of data as well as policies for its use in a loosely coupled network configuration (Karasti and Syrjänen, 2004).

Today's phenomenon of creating movies with a team that was assembled for the purpose of making a single movie is instructive. Clearly reputation and "who you know" play some part in the selection of individuals. Once on the set, however, the person's skill-set, role in the enterprise, and ability to work with others in a dynamic milieu where unexpected events ma arise, is put to the test. While the "Open Networks" we discuss here are not identical, the agility, intelligence, and effectiveness that these groups can potentially manifest is huge.

During a 1999 interview on the local Seattle public radio affiliate, a woman who was involved in the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle was asked "why it was necessary to break glass" to get the issues on the public agenda. She first mentioned that she and her colleagues had been trying unsuccessfully to get these issues on the public agenda for a decade and that she was opposed to using violence against people or property. She went on to say, however, that one couldn't help but notice that after windows were smashed in Seattle the media, pundits and others seemed to acknowledge the issues more readily — at least for a week or so. Hence we make the argument here that "It shouldn't be necessary to break glass" for citizens and citizen groups to get a public airing for the issues that they feel are important.

Where do the "pictures in our heads" (Lippman, 1921) and the issues that we're contemplating at the moment come from? Certainly we are all "free" to come up with something that's all our own but this is not likely to be commonplace. When we see something, something else in our mind is triggered. We may interpret the information in our particular way but the new information is the driver — not something else. At any rate, it's not the idiosyncratic and disconnected thought that's important, it's the focused, diverse, engaged and thoughtful collective mind that democracy requires. The sounds and the images that the big electronic billboard, always there and always on, holds aloft for the world to view will obviously garner more attention ("mind share") than something with less visibility — which, of course, is everything else. The press as Bernard Cohen points out, "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling it's readers what to think about"

Maxwell McCombs' and Donald Shaw's paper on "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media" (1972) brought the notion that the mass media is instrumental to agenda-setting to prominence. This paper demonstrated that the public's answers to the perennial Gallup Poll question "What is the most important problem facing this country today?" could be predicted quite clearly by looking at the news as presented by the newspapers, network television news, and news magazines that were available at that time in the month prior to the poll. In a more recent paper, McCombs reported that since the original article, "more than 300 published studies worldwide have documented this influence of the news media."

Now, some 35 years after the original publication, the media landscape has changed considerably. People (at least in the U.S.) have more choices and many apparently "choose" to be ill-informed. The mass media with its collage of seemingly random information about movie start divorces, dog food, genocide, game shows, laugh tracks, mass starvation, cell phones, climate change, "shock jocks", trailer fires, bus plunges, talking heads, celebrity chit-chat, invasions may be actually doing more to muddle than to inform.

The Internet, however, is currently providing an interesting challenge to the hegemony of the mass media. Community networks and Indymedia showed glimpses that other ways of producing and consuming news were possible. The explosion of blogs of every type is the latest salvo along these lines. In fact, as of the end of the 2003, 2/3 of the blogs were political (Delwiche, 2005). The blogging phenomenon suggests many things including the blurring of the division between producers and consumers of journalism and the continuing fragmentation of journalism roles and venues. Some of the more interesting questions, recently explored by Aaron Delwiche (2005), are whether the blogs are — or can be — agenda-setters in their own right and whether they can serve as a tonic and an alternative to their mass-produced forbearers.

It would be naive to think the mass media will provide citizens with the information that they need without pressure from the citizenry. They'll say first that their first responsibility is their stockholders. We must remember that just because something is mentioned in the mass media doesn't mean that it's irrelevant and vapid. Although the previous statement was made with tongue in cheek, there is certainly a danger (as well as a temptation) to disregard all mass media. The realization that traditional (mass) media is ready and willing (and generally capable) of diverting attention from the important to the superfluous is a significant first step but it's just a start. Monitoring the media systems, constructing a broad and compelling alternative agenda must be an ongoing enterprise.