[P2P-F] Fwd: [fcforum] JessyCom, Draft III

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dmytri Kleiner <dk at telekommunisten.net>
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 8:49 PM
Subject: [fcforum] JessyCom, Draft III
To: fcforum at list.fcforum.net


Hey, I'd love to have comments and feedback on this current
Telekommunisten project:


JessyCom, a community mobilization platform.


Some of us may remember our parents being part of a calling tree or
phone tree while we where in school.

Each Parent would have a list of a few other parents, when the school
had a message, they would call the parents on top of the tree, who would
then call the other parents on their list and so on, until the entire
community got the message.

Cory Doctorow, quoted by Becky Hogge in "Barefoot into Cyberspace," notes
that "The main job of activist organizers prior to 1995 or so was stuffing
envelopes and setting up phone trees [...] Mailman and Apache took 95% of
the heavy lifting of the shoulders of activists"

The JessyCom system is something like Calling Tree 2.0.

The system was inspired by the fact that many residence of the Jessy Cohen
neighborhood, where the system was launched, have infrequent internet
access and little or no calling credit.

JessyCom implements a variation on the "Random Phone Call" broadcast
model to efficiently enable a community to share information by having
the system call people and connect them to each other on the phone,
creating an ad-hoc Phone Tree.

For social movements operating in underprivileged or peripheral
communities participation is made possible by the fact that only
a phone that is able to receive incoming calls is needed,
calling credit is not required in most countries where inbound
calls are free. Internet access is not required.

The mobile phone is by far the most ubiquitous technology on the planet,
no other platform can hope to reach as many people. Conservative estimate
of mobile phone usage indicate that 1 in 6 people globally have a mobile
phone, while internet access is available to less than half that number.

And yet, despite it's accessibility, a calling tree is not inefficient.

Each tier of the tree grows exponentially from the size of the previous
one, it remains a very fast and efficient system for getting
information out to a lot of people. Since people often answer phone
calls right away, but may not read email for some time, a community can
be mobilized a lot faster. People also generally answer the phone far
more often then they read bulk email, even when it comes from a wanted
source.

One of the applications that military organizations have used calling
trees for is the rapid deployment of reserve troops.  Social movements,
also, could benefit from a system that can quickly deploy engaged
supporters.

When people of think of Flashmobs or Smart Mobs they generally imagine
people using microblogging or SMS texting to organize, but telephone
conversations facilitate such mobilizations even more efficiently.

The impersonal nature of the email and web pages delivered by Mailman
and Apache, results in more superficial and weaker links within
movements.

Supporters become more inclined to simply forward generic texts and
links, and not often actually engage with each other to discuss and
spread statements and calls to action. Participants becoming more
focused on a nucleus of movement leaders, rather than each other.

While Cory's claim that internet based organization eliminated 95% of the
work of activists may well be correct. It also removed ways in which
people could actually connect and engage with a movement. So movements
have less people actively involved and more people passively involved.

There is quite a large difference in focus and engagement between passing
on a call to action by actually talking to a real person about it as a
part of phone tree, vs quickly clicking "like" on a Facebook status update
and hoping your friends will notice it.

The JessyCom network broadcast model is based on conversations between
real people. Feedback allows  the person delivering the message to correct

misunderstanding, etc, and even receive information from the personal
they are calling. Relationships among people who have talked to each other
are naturally stronger than among those email address is simply included
on the same distribution list.

Telekommunisten will continue to work with the Digital Art Lab to take the
prototype developed as part of the Jessy Cohen Project and bring the
platform to other communities looking for ways to engage and mobilize.
Such communities are welcome to contact us to get involved.

Information about the current Jessy Cohen Project based system can be
found here:

http://www.jessycom.co.il/about?lang=en

--
Dmyri Kleiner
Venture Communist

-----
+ info http://list.fcforum.net/wws/info/fcforum
-------




-- 
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20110815/3d416cf9/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
-----
+ info http://list.fcforum.net/wws/info/fcforum
-------